WizKid: Year One
by Joshua The Evil Guy
Summary: HP/Marvel Universe. Harry Potter is a wizard. He is also a mutant. This is his first year at Hogwarts, where he has to deal with being a mutant wizard, his developing powers, making friends, and to top it all his parents murderer coming back to life!
1. Hogwarts Express

Title: Harry Potter: Wizkid

Author: Joshua

Disclaimer: Marvel Universe will forever and for all time be the sole property of Stan Lee (and/or his Successor), while the HP Universe was written and created by JK Rowling, and since I am neither of those people, I don't get to make any money from this. I'm just doing it cause it's fun! Spoilers for the book "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" which is the American version of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", quite simply because I am American and that's the only copy I have access to. The version of X-Men and Marvel Universe that I'm using is _based_ upon the version I know best, pre-Movies from the comics, IE late 1990's Marvel Comics. But do not expect any spoilers for any of the issues that detail Earth-616, rather consider this a whole other Earth-Marvelverse. I haven't picked a number yet.

Summary: AU X-over HP / Marvel Universe. Harry Potter's a Wizard, Mutant, Student, and the Boy-Who-Lived. He has to deal with things from controlling his powers, learning magic, playing Quidditch, and keeping evil wizards, mutants, and aliens from killing him. Then his friends get involved, and things really get messy! Year One begins!

Author's Notes: This was inspired, partially, by the HP/X-Men crossover trilogy by "Harry Potter and the Children of the Atom by Classic Cowboy". A really good story worth reading, even if it goes so AU, I don't even bother reading it as anything but. Portions of this story also reflect my growing annoyance at everybody that immediately or 9 times out of 10 place Ron and the rest of the Weasleys as "pawns of Dumbledore" or "selfish, greedy purebloods that struck gold by being nice to Harry" and portray Ron as nothing but faults and Ginny as nothing but a slut. So, for a bit of flavor, I'm trying out the opposite end of the spectrum for once. After all, intentional or not, almost all of the Weasleys are named after one or more of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, so I am doing my best to make these characters in my story reflect _that_ rather than stay true to HP canon.

Year One

_Kings Cross Station_

_Downtown London_

_September 1__st __10:45 AM_

"We're cutting it rather close, aren't we?" Brian asked as the team of British superheroes disembarked the rented van and quickly loaded up a trolley with all of Harry's school things.

"It's not my fault you got us lost in the parking garage," Wanda argued back at him. "Somebody keep track of Meggan, please. Kurt? Brian and I will take Harry in. Say your goodbyes now. If you want, we'll see you at Christmas, OK Harry?"

"Right," Harry grinned nervously up at the Scarlet Witch. He quickly turned and said his goodbyes to the rest of Excalibur that had come with them. Even a heavily-distracted Meggan, who'd been to London before, but whenever you put her in a crowd of more than a few people, she got very easily distracted.

Once everybody had been hugged and promised to write to, Harry, Brian, and Wanda all walked into Kings Cross Station, alongside a normal looking young man that had black hair in the same style as Kurt's, baby blue eyes, and smooth white skin. How his Image Inducer hid the tail, Harry couldn't begin to guess.

Pretty soon they were on the section between Platforms 9 and 10, and Wanda was explaining how the barrier worked when at that moment a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying. "... packed with Muggles, of course..."

Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry's in front of him—and they had an owl. Wanda noticed that Harry was no longer paying attention to her and turned to see who he was looking at.

"Molly? Molly Prewitt, is that you?" she screeched in that way women do when they see an old friend.

The plump redheaded woman stopped and turned to look at who had called her name, as did the boys around her. It was then that Harry finally noticed the cute young red haired girl that had been hiding behind who could only be the children's mother.

"Oh my heavens," Molly gasped, "Can it be? No, surely not! Wanda Maximoff! Arthur told me you'd gone to America, last he heard from you. We've always wondered what happened to you!"

Like two locomotives on the same track, the two red haired women crashed together in a hug, making all those indecipherable noises women make when they hug an old friend they haven't seen for a long time. Finally, Brian Braddock, the bravest man in England and the superhero known as Captain Britain, cleared his throat and grabbed the women's attention away from each other.

"Um, excuse me, ladies," he pointed at the Barrier. "The train?"

"Oh, how silly of me," Molly became flustered, looking Brian up and down for a moment. "Is this your husband, Wanda? Sending your first one off to Hogwarts, I see."

"What?" Wanda yelped, drawing a bit of attention. "What? No! No, no, no, no, NO. Brian is not my husband, fiancé, nor boyfriend. He's just a friend, who is involved with another of my friends. We're just here to give Harry some help in getting on the train and whatnot. Speaking of which..."

"Right. Now, what's the platform number?" Molly asked, absentmindedly.

"They finally did that work on the rails then?" Wanda asked. Molly nodded, commenting herself, "It was horrid I tell you. They finally switched it to another hidden track while the platform was worked on for the past few years. They just changed it again this year, and with all my boys I can hardly keep up as is. Oh, what is that platform number?"

"Nine and three-quarters!" piped the small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mom, can't I go..."

"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be a good girl. All right, Percy, you go first."

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it—but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

"Fred, you next," Molly said.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone—but how had he done it?

Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was almost there—and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.

"How are they doing that?" Harry asked Wanda. She giggled a bit and then stepped forward.

"Molly, dear, would you mind terribly if Harry went next. It's his first time and all," she asked.

"Oh, of course not," Molly replied, looking over at Harry. "Hello, dear. First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too." She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangly, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

"Yeah," he answered her with more confidence than he might once have if he'd been alone. "And Wanda's been great at explaining everything, but I'm still not sure... exactly... how to..."

"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and Harry nodded.

"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Er, OK," said Harry.

He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid. He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to platforms nine and ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash

right into that barrier and then he'd be in trouble, leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run. The barrier was coming nearer and nearer... he wouldn't be able to stop... the cart was out of control... he was a foot away... he closed his eyes ready for the crash...

It didn't come... he kept on running... he opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks. The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats.

Harry pushed his cart off to the side and before long Ron, his mother and sister stepped through, followed very shortly by Wanda and Brian. "Wow," he whispered in amazement at the whole other world he'd, literally, just stepped into.

"C'mon, Harry," Brian said, grabbing Hedwig and his trunk, "Let's find you a compartment while Wanda and her friend catch up."

Harry just nodded, and absently said, "Right."

On their way down the train length, they came across a rather disturbing scene, of a young bushy brown haired girl, obviously a First Year like Harry, struggling with her trunk while a bunch of upperclassmen, that happened to already be dressed in the school robes, were laughing at her attempts to struggle with the trunk and get it on the train. Harry absently took note of the fact that the patches on their robes were colored green with a silver snake on them.

Without him having to say anything, Brian handed Hedwig to Harry and then quickly picked up the trunk for the young girl. "Need a hand, here?" he offered her.

"Oh!" she startled, then looked up, and up, and up into Brian's over-six-foot frame and blond hair, blue eyes, and (according to all the women Harry'd heard talk about him) handsome face. "Uh, thank you. Thank you very much, sir."

"Not a problem at all. Why don't we find you two a compartment to sit in. Ah, here's one," he entered the train in the next-to-last compartment and quickly and easily stuffed both trunks into the luggage carrier. Harry brought Hedwig up with himself and easily settled into the seat next to the brown haired girl.

"Thank you very much for your help," she said to Brian.

"Not a problem at all, glad I could be of help. Harry, I'm pretty sure Wanda is going to want to say a few more goodbyes, so let's get it over with while we've got the time," he chuckled.

"Right," Harry nodded and followed the older man out of the train.

Just as they were coming up to Wanda, who was still next to her old school friend, Harry saw the woman bring out a handkerchief and pull her youngest son to her, "Ron, you've got something on your nose."

The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose. "Mom! Geroff!" He wriggled free.

"Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" said one of the twins.

"Shut up," said Ron.

"Where's Percy?" said their mother.

"He's coming now."

The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a shiny silver badge on his chest with the letter P on it. "Can't stay long, Mother," he said. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves..."

"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?" said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."

"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once..."

"Or twice..."

"A minute..."

"All summer..."

"Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.

"How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" said one of the twins.

"Because he's a prefect," said their mother fondly. "All right, dear, well, have a good term... send me an owl when you get there."

She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.

"Now, you two. This year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've-you've blown up a toilet or..."

"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."

"Great idea though, thanks, Mom."

"It's not funny. And look after Ron."

"Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."

"Shut up," said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

"Oh, there you are, Harry," Wanda suddenly spoke up, after having watched this amusing display of family antics. "Don't think I'm letting this train leave without you saying goodbye first!"

"Wouldn't dream of it, Teach," Harry chuckled, hugging the woman that had shown him who he really was, and given him the key to what he could become. "And if it makes you feel any better, thanks to Brian here, I've already made a new friend."

"Oh? I take it she's an attractive upperclassman?" Wanda giggled.

"No, First Year like me," Harry grinned maliciously up at the superhero, who was cursing himself under his breath. Wanda looked up at the tall, attractive man and joked at him, "Grabbing them a bit young, aren't you Braddock? And what would Meggan say?"

"Oh shut up," Brian blushed and turned away.

Just then the train whistled and everyone still on the Platform became a bit frantic. "Hurry up!" Molly practically shoved all her boys onto the train, while Brian helped Harry back to his compartment. In the mad scramble it was hard to say what exactly happened, but it all resulted with Harry getting back to his compartment with the girl, Hermione, and Ron following after him. By the time everything was settled, Ron's trunk was next to his, and they were sitting in the compartment across from Hermione and another First Year, a round-faced boy Harry had seen talking to his grandmother about a missing toad on the Platform.

The train was moving by the time that, besides him and Hermione, nobody really knew who everybody else was. "Hi," he said to break the ice, "uh... so, I guess we're all First Years?"

"I'm Hermione Granger, first witch in my family, if you must know," the lone girl in the cabin introduced herself. It was a bit startling, but it started off the introductions.

"Uh... I-I'm Neville L-Longbottom," the round-faced boy introduced himself. His pocket croaked as his toad tried to leap to freedom, only to be caught by Harry at the last possible second. "Thanks," said Neville.

"I'm Ron Weasley," the redhead, freckle-faced boy said, almost like he was embarrassed about it.

Harry took a deep breath and decided to bite the bullet, so to speak. Wanda had warned him about the possible reactions his name would give him, not all of them pleasant, but undoubtedly many would be uncomfortable for him.

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter," he finally said.

"No way!" Ron's face dropped in open shock.

"Are you really?" Hermione's face was similar to that of Beast's when a new object of curiosity passed under his nose. On her though, it was kind of cute. Not that he cared about that kind of thing.

"Wow," was all Neville could say, staring and star-struck.

"I've read all about you," Hermione started to recite the articles and books she'd read that had his name mentioned in them, and he mostly tuned her out until he finally had had enough. "I got a few extra books, for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"I've read'em," he grunted, and unfortunately he had. When he asked Wanda about the same subject all those articles talked about, he was highly disappointed with the answer. Before Hermione could start up again, he interrupted her, "Can we change the subject please? I know what those articles all say, but to be perfectly honest, nobody _really_ knows what happened the night my parents were murdered by a psychopath."

"Oh, I see," Hermione's face was a picture in astonishment.

"Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.

"Ron! That was very rude..." Hermione started up again, but Harry quickly interrupted again.

"Yes, I'm really Harry Potter, unless there's another one out there we don't know about," he said.

"And have you really got—you know..." He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Shrugging, and not really seeing the harm in it, Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar, letting them all gawk at his forehead for a minute.

"So that's where You-Know-Who..." Ron whispered.

"Yes," said Harry, "but I can't remember it."

"Nothing?" asked Hermione eagerly.

"Well... I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else." Harry admitted.

"Wow," said Neville. They all sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as though they had suddenly realized what they were doing, each quickly looked out of the window or out into the hall.

"It's all right," Harry finally told them. "I'm just not exactly used to attention. For the first ten years of my life, I've either been ignored or treated like nothing special. I'm just not used to people staring at me or expecting me to be some kind of celebrity. Y'know?"

Surprisingly, Ron nodded along with him, saying, "Yeah, being a celebrity ain't all it's cracked up t'be."

After that, an uncomfortable silence hovered in the air, until Neville's toad Trevor tried another escape attempt. "I don't know why he keeps trying to get away," he said, after getting Harry's help in securing his pet.

"Have you fed him today?" Harry joked, only to be surprised when Neville's face dropped in horror and he quickly started scrambling in his trunk for some food for his toad.

As another means of starting conversation, Hermione spoke up, "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad..."

"Better than Slytherin, by far," Ron agreed. "Every member of my family's been in Gryffindor actually, so chances are pretty good that's where I'll end up."

"I don't know what house my parents were in," Neville shamefully admitted. "I'll probably wind up in Hufflepuff, my Gran says."

Harry just shrugged. "I honestly don't know what to expect. My tutor explained each of the houses to me, but all she would say was that at the beginning of each year, all the First Years are separated into their houses based on their personal qualities. She would never explain what that meant, or what the qualities were."

"Oh, you had a tutor in magic? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard. I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough..."

"How could you have possibly learned all of those books by heart?" Harry was almost outraged. Here he was, working half the summer with the Scarlet Witch, reading whole books some two or three per day! And he only had a rudimentary understanding of each. Now here was another witch, claiming to have _memorized_ every single book he'd had to read, by heart!

"Well, it wasn't that difficult, really. You just have to read, and of course I use multiple mnemonic devices to further assist my recall, but the large part comes in understanding what the text is trying to explain and fully comprehending the subject matter. I love to read. My favorite book is actually the Compilation of William Shakespeare's Greatest Works. There are lots of magic and witches and even a few fairies, but I suppose that is all fictional. Whereas now I'm going to become a real witch and I'll probably get to meet a few real fairies, though I doubt they'd be like those in William Shakespeare's plays."

The boys could only stare as the young witch ran off at the mouth.

"Do you have a photographic memory?" Harry remembered something Beast had admitted to when Harry, on impulse, once asked him how he was so smart.

"Yes, actually," the witch replied forthwith. "And photographic memory is rather a bit of a misnomer and it's not really..."

"Yes, or no," Harry couldn't take another high-speed lecture. "I may not be a genius myself, Hermione, but I've known a few during this past summer. You don't have to show off how smart you are. Especially not with me. Now these other two blokes here, I can't speak for them, but you really, really don't have to shove it in my face how much smarter you are than me."

"Uh, yeah," Ron spoke up, "You really don't have to do that for me, either!"

"Uh... me either?" Neville squeaked.

"Oh," Hermione blushed bright enough to match Ron's hair. "I'm sorry... I..."

"Look," Harry hated seeing a girl upset worse than anything else in the world, "I know you're just as nervous as the rest of us. And you seem like a very nice person. And like I said, I got to know a few nice and smart people over the summer. So instead of talking on and on about how easy it is for you to learn and know things, how about talking over the _things_ you learned? Just because it's easier for you, doesn't make it as easy for the rest of us. And, that doesn't mean we don't still want to learn the same things, just that we need more time, and more help in learning it."

Rather than continue to look shame-faced and embarrassed, Hermione looked thoughtful at the Boy Who Lived for several minutes. Finally, she admitted, rather sheepishly, "You're right. I... I'm sorry about all that."

Harry shrugged. "Not the first person that's lost perspective in a conversation."

Hermione blinked, hard. "Lost perspective in a conversation?" she quoted back at him. "Where did you learn that phrase? I've heard someone else say something just like that before!" Harry just shrugged again.

Thankfully, before Hermione's curiosity burned a hole in her seat, the Snack Cart came by.

Most of the afternoon was spent learning more about each other and hypothesizing what it would be like at Hogwarts, and of course eating all of the snacks that Harry had bought for all of them from the Cart. About an hour before they were due to stop, Hermione reached up to grab her robes from her trunk and almost turned to make the boys all leave while she changed, until she realized that didn't make sense, as there were three of them and only one of her. It would be far more logical for her to go find the restroom or another empty cabin to change in than for all three of them to wait out in the hall.

Harry seemed to sense her dilemma and he came to an impulsive decision. "Hey fellas," he spoke to Ron and Neville, "This is the first time I've been on a train. How about we go round and see all there is to see on this thing, eh? Let's start at the back and work our ways forward, so we see as much of it as we can."

"All right!" Ron hastily agreed.

"Sounds fun," Neville hesitantly smiled. Then the round-faced boy turned to the only girl and asked, "Coming Hermione?"

"Oh, I'll be along in a minute, you go ahead and get started without me," she assured them, silently thanking Harry for his insight and thoughtfulness. They left and she quickly pulled down the curtains of the compartment and very quickly changed into her school robes, packing away her street clothes back into her trunk. Surprisingly, the moment she opened the door, she found the three boys grinning sheepishly at her, Harry scratching the back of his scalp in embarrassment.

"Uh, kind of forgot we were in the last compartment..." he mumbled.

"Oh, well, I'm done, and you all need to change into your school robes as well," she stated primly, trying her hardest not to blush. "I'll wait for you three out here, then we can explore the train together, all right?"

"Sounds good," Harry quickly agreed and dragged the other two inside before they could even guess about what was going on. They changed quickly and were out in less than three minutes. The rest of the trip, the four new students explored the train compartment by compartment, going almost all the way to the front engine, but they weren't allowed beyond the front passenger compartment, which just so happened to be the Prefects Car, and it was limited to those upperclassmen that were charged with enforcing school rules amongst the rest of the student population.

"I can hardly wait till I'm a Prefect," Hermione sighed as they made their way pack to their compartment.

"Bill never made that big a deal about it," Ron commented. "Percy, on the other hand, has practically been shoving it in our faces that he made Prefect this year. Become a downright prat, if you ask me. If that's what it takes to become Prefect, count me out."

Hermione looked outraged for all of five seconds as she analyzed Ron's words, and had to acknowledge that, occasionally, there would be an odd one out of the bunch.

"Something tells me, your brother isn't viewing being a Prefect the right way," Harry commented. "Isn't it supposed to be all about setting an example for the younger students and making sure everybody follows the rules? It's supposed to be about responsibility, not power."

"That's very profound, Harry," Hermione gushed, more for his words than it being him for saying it.

"Not really," Harry chuckled. "Read it out of a manga I've been reading. They have Prefects in Japanese schools, y'know? Not to mention they put heavy emphasis on the upperclassmen setting good examples for the younger students. The manga I was reading went on to have one of the characters become a Prefect that abused his power and basically became the villain of the story. Thought it made for good comparison."

"What's a manga?" Neville and Ron asked together.

Harry just chuckled while Hermione actually gave them a small lecture-worth explanation on what exactly manga was. When they got to the cabin, both of the other boys were looking as though they'd rather not have asked, so Harry just pulled out a random book from his trunk, which just so happened to be the first issue of Ranma ½. Finally, to the boys, all of Hermione's lecturing made sense and Ron started to flip through the pages. Then he suddenly stopped and asked a question that had both Harry and Hermione staring at him with arched eyebrows and curious expressions.

"Hey, how come the pictures don't move?"

_AN: This story isn't going to have "Chapters" or "Parts". I'm writing it as one contiguous series of events and postings will be of those 'events' and I'll try to keep the cliffhangers to a minimum, but sometimes they can't be helped. This story is also the second in the series. How far this series goes, well that remains to be seen, but individual stories will be segmented by "Years" same as the actual books, but at various points there may be... "side-stories", where they may be as short as the "prologue" was, the first story already posted; "_WizKid: Year Zero"_, or as long as this one may turn out to be. We'll all just have to see. Please Read & Review!_


	2. The Sorting Ceremony

_Hogwarts Station_

_Hogsmeade_

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?" a familiar voice cried out as a lamp came bobbing over the heads of students and Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. "C'mon, follow me! Any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid out from the station and down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, still between Harry and Ron, sniffed once or twice.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here." As soon as they turned the corner, the trees fell away and from the First Years, there was a loud, "Ooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione. "Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then, FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door. "Everyone here? Alright then!" Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door. The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's first thought was that this was not someone to cross. "The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid reported.

"Thank you Hagrid," she replied in a no-nonsense tone, but still nodded kindly as Hagrid bowed and left, "I will take them from here." She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have parked one of the X-Jets he'd seen on Muir Island in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to easily make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right, the rest of the school must already be here, but Professor McGonagall showed the First Years into a small, empty chamber just off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house Common Room."

"The four houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours."

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." She almost seemed to smile at them, but then she turned around and left the room, closing the door after her.

Two seconds after she was gone, a nasally, arrogant voice called out from just behind Harry, saying, "So it's true. Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts!" There was some mumbling and jostling, as he turned around and saw a pale, long-faced boy about his age with crisp and precisely molded blond hair. On either side of him were two thickset and mean-looking boys.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," he introduced after a beat, "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." Somebody had been watching way too many Bond films, Harry idly thought.

"Hi," he just waved, not really grinning or giving any indication that he wanted to continue the conversation in the least. Unfortunately, Malfoy didn't seem to catch the hint.

Ron, who'd been on the verge of snickering at the same thought Harry'd had, restrained himself when he actually caught sight of who exactly it was that was speaking. Barely holding in his rage, Ron turned himself around and bit the side of his mouth to keep from trying to rip the other First Year limb from limb, body guards or no body guards. He may not be wearing the mask or the same robes at the moment, but Ron would _never_ forget the one who had given him his first battle scar.

Despite the fact that he wasn't allowed into the thick of it with the rest of his family, Ron still had his own costume and he did go out on what his father called "training missions" to the various villages around Ottery St. Catchpole. It was on one of those training missions gone bad that he came across a mini Death Eater wannabe casually walking around shooting off curses at muggles in broad daylight!

Nobody had seen him when he tackled the masked boy and dragged him away from the open, but likewise no one had seen when the mini Death Eater turned on him and started cursing him left and right! For which he was mighty thankful, by the way. Eventually, the wannabe had gotten a bit too arrogant and dropped his guard enough for him to toss out a bind'n'catch, one of the Twins' inventions that combined delayed-transfiguration with the _Incarcerous_ hex, and it was basically a glass marble that when thrown against another person, it wraps them up in binding ropes. Unfortunately, he'd been able to free himself, and Ron didn't even have his own wand, let alone know how to curse back at the wannabe, so he'd finally settled for making the mini Death Eater flee in defeat than bother staying around getting humiliated any longer.

The Death Eater mask had never come off the young boy's face, but with the way he'd been ranting and crowing about his inevitable victory, Ron would remember that whining voice for a long time to come.

Thankfully, his rage at Malfoy, (who was now on his List), kept him from being too nervous about the upcoming sorting, and he also couldn't hear Malfoy insult his family to Harry. Harry, however, took exception on his behalf and coolly blew Malfoy off, telling him in no uncertain terms that they would not be friends and Malfoy's rather pitiful attempt at making friends had been thoroughly ignored. Before they could come to blows over Malfoy's deflated ego however, the doors to the Great Hall opened once more and the First Years were allowed entrance.

Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by hundreds of thousands of candles that were floating in mid-air over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the First Years up there, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, a few ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens. He heard Hermione whisper, "Its bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."

"Hermione," he whispered to her, "now is _really_ not the time to be showing off your brains."

She blinked at him, then blushed and looked down.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing wizards did, right? Noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat began to sing:

" (Listen up, one and all!)

(Hear what I have to say!)

(Believe or not, that's your call,)

(Change is on it's way!)

(A new year has begun,)

(For students young and old!)

(And here for each and everyone,)

(I bring you now into the fold!)

(Adventure awaits amidst these halls!)

(Opportunity knocks at every door!)

(Knowledge drips from the very walls!)

(Friendships, fellowships and more!)

(Now buck up and put me on!)

(With no delay I'll sort through your head!)

(Hurry now before I finish my song,)

(Nothing to fear, no need to dread!)

(Into the Houses you must go!)

(Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff!)

(Finding where you fit best is what I know!)

(Not to worry, I'm not rough!)

(Are you a lion, waiting to strike?)

(Gryffindor is where you'll win!)

(Perhaps a snake is what you're like?)

(We will see you then in Slytherin!)

(Have you a mind wanting to soar?)

(Ravenclaw will take you on!)

(Or is it friends that you want more?)

(Hufflepuff has got it going on!)

(All right, I'm done now,)

(My song has come to its end!)

(Don't expect me to take a bow!)

(Now you just go where they send!)"

[*Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it's not very good, but while I may write a good story, limericks and poems were never ever my strong suit...]

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bent toward each of the four tables in turn and then became quite still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Ron whispered to Harry. "I'll kill Fred! He was going on about wrestling a troll."

Harry smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel any of what it sang about at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment. "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. She began with the A's of course, and Harry thanked the heavens that his last name started with P as it meant he had a few minutes to wait before his turn.

It was all rather straightforward really, he realized after a few people had been sorted. The person walked up to the chair, they sat down, Professor McGonagall put the Sorting Hat onto their head, and they sat there anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, before the hat would open it's brim-mouth to shout out one of the four house names. By the time the B's had been finished, there had been at least one new student going to each of the four houses, who'd clapped wildly and greeted their new First Year with open arms. Taking a moment to study the people at each of the tables, as they moved rapidly through the rest of the alphabet, he noticed that they all looked expectant and enthusiastic, except for the table on the far end, under the green and silver serpent banners.

The Slytherins all looked rather pompous and arrogant, and just a bit brutish too, he noted. Ravenclaw seemed just as pompous, but their arrogance was dulled by actual intelligence shining in their eyes. The Gryffindor table seemed like a bit of fun, with wide grins, open smiles, and a bit of an atmosphere that Harry sometimes noticed around the groups of boys and girls who like to play sports. Beast would describe it as a Fraternity sort of group at that table. The Hufflepuffs looked the most open, friendly, and overall least hostile of all the tables. They also had a mixed set. Some looked like sportsmen and jocks, others looked like brainiacs and book readers, others looked like aristocrats and models, and others were just plain looking.

Finally, it was time.

Perks, Sally-Anne had just stepped off to the Ravenclaw table, and the stern Professor didn't even hesitate or do a double-take as she read off, "Potter, Harry!" The rest of the Great Hall, however, did not have her steady resolve, unfortunately.

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"_The_ Harry Potter?"

"Where is he? I can't see him! Where is he?"

"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, he beat You-Know-Who, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Potter..."

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

"Hmm... Let's see here," said a small voice that seemed to echo all around and through his head. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes! Plenty of loyalty to those that have earned your respect. And a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?"

Harry wasn't entirely sure what was going on, though he could hazard a guess or two. One thing he did know for certain though, he did not want to go to Slytherin and be surrounded by a bunch of opposite-spectrum Dursleys and Dudleys. But, Wanda's teachings had taught him that everything in the magical world had it's proper place, and he was simply an 11-year-old boy, and it was not his place to question that which was supposed to place him in the proper house. If he was put up in Slytherin, then he'd just have to buck up and deal with it, same that he's had to deal with every other one of his surprises lately.

"Just an 11-year-old-boy, eh? First rule of anything _boy_, if you don't make the choice for yourself, it chooses you, whether you want it or not. Still, there's that courage again. You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin would help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that. And you'd just grin and bear it wouldn't you? Well, if ever there was one, that is the true marking of a GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table. He was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Slytherin, he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, "We got Potter! We got Potter!"

Taking a seat next to the other First Years, just the other side of Hermione from Neville, Harry took a deep sigh of relief. He hadn't known how nervous he'd been until just now. "I'm glad that's over with," he told the other two he'd met on the train.

"Me too," they both agreed with his sentiments.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Hagrid, who caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up. Harry grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts.

There were only three people left, and before too long, Ron was sitting on Harry's other side, and as the last of the sorting was finished, everybody turned expectantly towards the High Table, and the high chair at the center especially. Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you and tuck in!" He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.

"Is he a bit... mad?" Harry asked around. Percy the Prefect, who was sitting on the other side of the table from the First Years answered.

"Mad?" said Percy airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?"

Harry's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs. Wanda had warned him, but this was a bit more than he expected.

"Yes, thank you," he finally managed to utter a response, accepting the dish from the Prefect.

The rest of the meal was a bit surreal to Harry, like he'd gone back in time to the middle ages and at the same time been revealed as some kind of noble with the way everyone treated him. Hermione was going on about stuff she'd read in Hogwarts, A History. Ron was going on about the wizard sport Quidditch, which Harry at least _understood_ but he didn't really comprehend it. Percy idly chatted about the school rules. The Twins came by and gave Harry a proper welcome into Gryffindor, and pretty soon the surreality of it all became rather fun. Like living with Excalibur and the X-Men had been.

The only sour note was when his scar started to throb before giving him a sharp jolt just before the dessert course. He'd been looking up at the High Table, and trying to remember all the Professors' faces and trying to guess which adult taught which subject. He'd been looking at the purple turban on the head of Professor Quirrell, when the pain started up. When it gave him the sharp pain, he winced and rubbed his scar, but went back to eating his dessert before continuing his inspection of the Professors. The greasy haired man sitting next to Professor Quirrell was staring right at him, although he admitted he could be mistaken. Shrugging, he didn't bother looking back again. If the man wanted to know something about him, all he had to do was ask.

Hermione had moved on to speaking with Percy about the curriculum and Neville was talking with the other First Year boys about how he'd thought he was what they called a 'Squib' for the longest time until an uncle of his decided to try and kill two birds with one stone by pushing him out a window to either prove the kid had magic, or to kill him apparently. Although Neville didn't phrase it like that, but that was how Harry chose to see it, given his own issues with 'Uncles'.

Ron, on the other hand seemed to almost be trying to devour the entire contents of the table, shoveling in morsel after morsel of food, dessert or otherwise. Harry stared on for a few seconds before he became a little disturbed by the display and had to turn away.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent. "Ahem, just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First Years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley Twins.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did. "He's not serious... is he?" he muttered to Percy.

"Must be," said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. "It's odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere, the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least."

And then he had everybody sing the school song, telling them to pick their own tune, before casting out the words magically for all to read from. Great as it was seeing magic of this scale, Harry felt a bit silly and rushed through the words in a fast-paced almost rapper speed.

Finally, they were allowed to leave and were sent off to bed. The Gryffindor First Years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry's legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Password?" she said.

"Caput Draconis," said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it, Neville needed a leg up, and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase, they were obviously in one of the towers, and they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

_Hogwarts_

_The Next Day_

Harry was blessing and praising Wanda Maximoff's name to the Highest Heavens every hour on the hour his first official day of class. It was only thanks to her tutoring and prepping him during his last summer month in magic and life at Hogwarts in general that he was even able to make it through the day!

To begin with, she had drawn him a very general map of Hogwarts itself. Even while things tended to move around on their own more often than not, she was able to give him enough reference to know which floor and section of the massive castle each class was located in. For example, Herbology was in the greenhouses, which was, of course, outdoors. Potions was in the dungeons, hence any stair leading down was a good bet. Astronomy was on the top of the highest tower and always at midnight on the roof of that tower. Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts (which Harry laughed at when he realized the abbreviation spelled Dada!), Transfiguration and History of Magic were a bit more difficult as they were each placed on different floors of the castle, and sometimes those floors weren't that easy to get to!

The first day wasn't so bad, with Herbology, Charms, Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts over the course of the full day. Second day was better only because they'd gotten used to the schedule from the first day, but it was changed to History of Magic, Charms, and Double-Transfiguration. Third day was tougher as it had History of Magic (a snooze-fest worse than Aunt Petunia's garden parties), Double-Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Astronomy at midnight. Thursday was much improved as it had Charms, Transfiguration, and the afternoon after lunch was History of Magic and then a follow up with the Astronomy Theory portion. Friday was the worst however, if only because of how it ended.

It started out pretty fine, with one final Defense Against the Dark Arts, then Double-Herbology covering the morning before Lunch, but then right after the midday meal, they had Double-Potions with the Slytherins. Next week promised that portions of the schedule would flip around, with the Double Lessons on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday would all be inter-changeable. Thankfully there was never a Double-History of Magic, as it was genuinely feared that some students would go into magical comas if they had to sit that long through one of Binns' lectures.

Each class was unique and vaunted of teaching little more than the basics to all the First Years, but given the complexity of each subject, that just drove home to all the young witches and wizards just how difficult magic really was. Except for History of Magic, which was more of a struggle to remain conscious rather than something that Harry actually bothered to pay any attention to.

Charms was fun and entertaining, especially with the dwarfish Professor Flitwick and the class pretty much covered everything that you expected of magic. Wand waving, spell casting, and there was even talk of how the teacher was actually a renowned Duelist, which is what wizards called a magical battle of any sort.

Transfiguration, taught by Professor McGonagall, who happened to be Head of Gryffindor house, was interesting and as complicated as Wanda had promised him it was going to be. Despite the opportunity to show favoritism, Professor McGonagall made sure to treat every student the same as the next, no matter what house they hailed from. Harry could respect that.

Herbology was fun, but only because it was basically playing in the dirt and learning about a side of gardening he never knew. Despite the fact that her parties were dull, Aunt Petunia still had Harry do most of her gardening for her, so he knew all about weeding, planting, watering and all sorts of things already. Turns out magical gardening was just a bit more... interesting, what with some of the plants able to kill, poison, paralyze, or bewitch you if you weren't too careful.

Defense Against the Dark Arts, something Harry had been looking forward to after Wanda's own lessons in the subject, was a colossal joke unfortunately. Professor Quirrell was a trembling coward to everyone present and the best defense he could offer his students was to run away screaming and then hide under your bed. Not that he actually told them to do that, but Harry surmised that he wouldn't be getting as much from Quirrell's class as he'd hoped for.

Astronomy was, if anything, peaceful. The late nights stopped bothering him after the second class, and it only ever lasted for an hour anyway. Professor Sinistra was an excellent teacher as she allowed them to do little more than stare up at the heavens as she lectured them and told them of the paths and names and effects of the planets and stars upon magic. Despite being late at night and doing nothing but staring at the sky, the class was never boring and always interesting to Harry. Especially when he recalled that thanks to his mutant powers, he could call upon the "power" of the stars any time he wished.

And that just leaves Potions. Potions was something else that Harry had been, at least peripherally, interested in learning about. He was just grateful that he'd been allowed to maintain his illusions until his first Double-Potions at the end of the first week.

Professor Snape was notoriously biased towards his own house as Head of Slytherin house. And if that wasn't bad enough, it seemed that he was also prejudiced _against_ Gryffindor house, but that was only the beginning of it.

Snape, like Professor Flitwick, had started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name. "Ah, yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new... celebrity."

Draco Malfoy and his friends, Crabbe and Goyle, sniggered behind their hands. Meanwhile, Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. Like Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death, if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn't a so-called dunderhead.

"Potter!" snapped Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

_Powdered root of what to an infusion of what?_ Harry glanced at Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione's hand had shot into the air. Snape, however was staring only at him and completely ignoring the girl.

"I... don't know, sir," Harry finally admitted. Wanda had covered Potions, briefly, with him, but in light of everything else she tried to cram into his head, he hadn't paid as close attention as perhaps he should've.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer. "Tut, tut... Fame clearly isn't everything."

Harry's cheeks burned with embarrassment. It's not like he _wanted_ all the fame!

"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

_That_ struck a chord in him, even as Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, he racked his brain for the answer, until suddenly it just popped into his head.

"Oh! I know that one!" he exclaimed happily. "A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it's supposed to save you from most poisons. I think the only poisons they can't counteract are supposed to be those that either cause instant death, or are venoms from the most poisonous magical creatures in existence. Uh... is that right, sir?" he hesitantly asked for confirmation.

Professor Snape glared hard at Harry, making the young boy blink in surprise at the intensity of the stare. "Interesting, if somewhat amateurish answer, Potter. How is it you came by that particular answer?"

"Oh, I had a tutor over the summer, and when we covered Potions, the first thing she had me learn was the remedies for poisons and the properties of each remedy. The bezoar stood out because of the goat thing for some reason." Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle almost cackled at his statement, making him wonder what was so funny about it.

Hermione finally put her hand down, but Snape was still glaring at him, and finally seemed to come to some sort of decision as he simply nodded. "Very well, Potter. It seems that while you did not come to this class _fully prepared_, you at the least made the appearance of effort. Tell me the name of your tutor."

Blinking at the sudden change of subject, Harry replied immediately, "Wanda Maximoff, sir."

Silence.

Dead silence.

Harry slowly looked around to find everyone, even Malfoy and his lot, all staring at him with open mouths and looks of shock and awe on their faces.

"Are you trying to be funny, Potter?" Snape almost snarled at him.

Surprised, Harry could only silently shake his head.

"You expect me to believe that the _Scarlet Witch_ actually bothered to tutor an arrogant snot like you?"

Blinking, Harry almost shrugged until he quickly realized that was not the smartest action to take at this moment in time. Finally, he answered, "There was an accident at my home earlier this summer. Wand... Miss Maximoff and several of her compatriots saved my life and took me to a place to allow me to recuperate. She was the one that told me I was a wizard, and she told me that it was her responsibility as an alumni of Hogwarts to ensure that I was properly prepared for my upcoming education."

"I admit that I didn't pay as much attention to her Potion lessons as I should've and we did not brew any actual potions during that time, but I assure you, Professor Snape, sir, that Wanda Maximoff did teach me during this past summer." Harry said before he continued. "She also told me about what happened to my parents, sir. She mentioned that she knew my mother, and while she was acquainted with my father, she didn't really like him all that much."

Snape glared for another minute at the eleven-year-old boy and his wide, honest emerald green eyes, before finally turning around in a huff and tapped the chalk board with his wand. Then he began to lecture at a speed that few could keep up with, and Harry had the feeling of dread coming from all around him. It didn't help that a few of the other students were still staring at him.

About halfway through the lecture, Harry paused, suddenly looking up and then all around. He quickly went back to his note-taking, until that feeling of something touching his mind returned a moment later. Despite their limited time together, as he'd had to go Stateside early on, Harry'd had at least a few lessons with Professor Xavier, and more often than not those lessons came in the form of psychic communication.

Reaching out with his thoughts, he opened up the link between himself and Professor X and sent across it, _'Professor? Is there something you needed?'_

A moment or two later, he heard Charles Xavier's telepathic thoughts in his mind as though the man were sitting right next to him. _'Hello Harry. How is school going? Is everything all right?'_

_'Yes Professor. It's just I thought _you _wanted to speak to _me_. I felt that same feeling that I got whenever we were having our lessons in Mental Defense. I'm actually in the middle of class right now, but thanks to Wanda I've got a pretty good understanding of everything. Almost missed all the answers to the teacher's pop quiz at the beginning of the lesson.'_ Harry explained.

_'Oh really... Just a moment Harry...'_ the Professor's thoughts faded away for a few seconds. A few seconds during which Professor Snape faltered in his own lecture, his eyes going glassy for a second or two mid-sentence before he shook himself and stuttered for only a moment before picking back up where he left off.

_'Sorry about that Harry, just needed to address a certain issue for a second there,'_ Charles explained. _'I'll let you get back to your lesson. And Harry... If you get that same feeling again, and I don't outright contact you, then I want you to try practicing your mental shields instead of contacting me back. You never know when a real threat may try to invade your mind, and it is good practice to be ever vigilant.'_

_'Yes, Professor,'_ Harry dutifully replied, turning all of his attention back to his note-taking now.

Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a 'simple' potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon.

Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville. "You! Potter! Why didn't you tell him not to add the quills?" He continued on for another few berating sentences, but Harry had stopped listening after that. He had been about to argue that it wasn't his job to watch another person's work and why should he anyway?

Then he realized how selfish that sounded and how stupid it was too. He _should _have been watching out for his fellow house mate, and Neville was one of the first people he'd met on the Hogwarts Express too! He didn't want to be too premature about it, but he thought they could be friends even. Besides, what was a little bit of extra work in looking out for everyone else in addition to completing his own if it meant Gryffindor won the house cup and everybody learned what they needed to learn?

Harry now had a new goal for every single one of his classes. Ignoring Snape's slurs and insults for the rest of the lesson, Harry started looking around more, while making sure to pay attention to what he was doing as well. Hermione's potion was near perfect, far as he could tell, and a few of the other Gryffindors were about average, near as he could tell, but nobody was about to make another mistake as Neville had done.

After the lesson, he and Ron practically raced up the stairs, but instead of going to Hagrid's, they'd been invited via note delivered by Hedwig during breakfast, Harry lead them straight to the hospital wing to check on Neville. Surprisingly, Hermione was right on their heels the whole way.

Once they had checked on Neville, and Harry had apologized profusely for not helping Neville in helping him keep his potion from blowing up on them, where Neville and Seamus then both pointed out they hadn't expected him to and it was unfair for him to take the blame for something like that, the three First Years left the hospital wing and as classes were over for the day, they had a free period now. On a whim, and simply because she was there, Harry invited Hermione to come with him and Ron to visit Hagrid that afternoon. They both quickly and enthusiastically agreed.

At five after three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door. When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying, "Back, Fang! Back!"

Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open. "Hang on," he said. "Back, Fang!" He finally let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

"Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

"Hagrid, these are my friends," Harry introduced them. "That's Ron, and this is Hermione."

"Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid. "I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest. Knew Charlie and Bill too. Always liked Charlie. Great with animals."

Hermione was a bit stunned at the moment, though Harry could only guess it was from meeting Hagrid up close and personal for the first time, but she was actually still reeling over Harry calling her his friend. She'd never been just casually accepted like that before, usually only being called a friend when somebody needed her help in studying, or when she was being cajoled into helping another student get out of trouble with a teacher.

The visit was very pleasant, Hagrid served tea and rock cakes. They talked about how classes were going, bad-mouthed the Caretaker, Filch and his cat Mrs. Norris. Harry mentioned the Potions lesson they'd just left, and Hermione finally broke out of her funk to ask Hagrid a few questions about Hogwarts in general. Ron asked questions about his brothers, and revealed he had a younger sister who would be coming to Hogwarts next year. Then Harry found the newspaper article about the break in at Gringotts. It had happened on his birthday.

After that point, the conversation quickly soured, as the three students could clearly see that Hagrid was hiding something, but they had little clue as to what. Finally, they left as it was time to go to dinner and they still had to wash up and everything.

On the way back up to the castle, Hermione pulled Harry off to the side and asked him quietly, "Why did you tell the Gameskeeper that I'm your friend? What do you want from me?"

Surprised, Harry stopped walking, which was noticed by Ron, who came back in time to hear his response. "First of all, he's just Hagrid, not the gameskeeper or Keeper of the Keys and all that, just Hagrid. Secondly... well, why can't you be my friend, or I yours? We've known each other since the train, you're smart, fun, and intelligent. Only downside is that bossy streak and know-it-all attitude you've got, but we've all got flaws, me especially. As for what I want from you? Why should I want anything from you? It's not like friendship needs to be conditional."

"What's this about?" Ron asked, confused by the answer.

"I just don't understand," Hermione admitted, shaking her head. "Nobody has ever just outright called me their friend before. They always want something. Help on a test, doing their homework for them, what is it you want?"

Harry and Ron blinked, stunned by the confession from the 'bossy-girl'. They shared a look and realized that there was more to the talking brain than they first realized.

"Wanda would hex me to hell and back again if she thought I cheated," Harry told them, "On a test or on homework. While I'd appreciate any help you could offer while studying, I'll do my own work, thank you. As for what I want... how about your friendship in return for mine? Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?"

"You're both mental," Ron sighed. "C'mon! We're going to be late for supper!"

"He's always thinking with his stomach," Harry told Hermione as they resumed the trek back up to the castle. "You'll get used to it. Eventually. So I'm told, by his brothers anyway."

Hermione followed behind, until she started to smile and didn't know why. She raced to catch up and the three of them entered the Main Hall together and hurried to clean up before coming back down for dinner.

_Please Read & Review!_


	3. Flight

_Hogwarts Grounds_

Flying lessons started the next week. After a blessed weekend, classes started back up with a vengeance as the teachers stopped 'introducing' the First Years to their magical education, and finally started teaching and expecting the necessary results. Homework was due, practical lessons began in earnest, and History of Magic was still as boring and dull as ever.

Come Thursday afternoon, all of the First Years marched out to the Quidditch pitch for the flying lessons, only to find the Slytherins already there, Malfoy gloating over how he'd been flying practically all his life and how great he was at the wizard sport of Quidditch. And Harry had been so looking forward to learning how to fly too.

The moment they were all there, Madam Hooch, a short silver-haired witch with the yellow eyes of a hawk, appeared in a flash next to them and started instructing the moment they arrived. She had them each stand next to one of the school brooms and then began walking the length of their ranks, giving them the standard safety lecture. Then came the moment of truth;

"Now. Stick out your right hand over your broom, and say 'Up!'," she told them. Most of them complied immediately and felt rather silly when nothing happened or the broom only rose an inch off the ground. With Harry, however, his broom snapped into his hand the instant he commanded it to.

"Whoa," he whispered in awe.

Hermione and Neville seemed to be having some trouble, and sticking with his new found Snape-inspired dedication towards his fellow students success, Harry leaned over and had Ron help Neville with getting his broom, while he helped Hermione, since she was next to him.

He knew she was actually quite nervous about the whole flying idea, after all it's not exactly something that can be done purely by reading out of a book. Not that she hadn't been trying. He'd almost caught her lecturing the other first years about flying tips she'd read from one of said books, but before she could actually get started on anything of the sort, he passed her by and gave her a look that instead of bossing everybody around, had her showing the book and its passages around to anybody that wanted to take a look. Harry had taken her up on the offer and thanked her for the opportunity. He hadn't been the only one.

As it was now, her broom, rather than raising to her hand, had simply rolled over on its side. Her face getting flushed, she commanded even more haughtily, "UP! UP! C'mon, UP!"

"Hermione, are you scared?" Harry asked her quietly.

She looked up at him, her eyes shining with outrage, until she actually met his eyes and deflated like a popped balloon. "It's OK to be scared. Someone once told me that being scared makes you more aware, more focused, and that makes it more difficult for you to actually be hurt... so long as your courage keeps moving you forward despite your fear."

She snapped her head back around to stare at him with shocked eyes. "Where did...?" she started to ask, but Madam Hooch had become somewhat impatient and began directly 'assisting' those that did not already have their brooms in hand.

Harry acted quickly, telling Hermione, "Look, don't ignore your fear, or tell yourself that you're not afraid. Accept it, and then make the decision, do you want to fly or not? If the answer is yes, then tell that broom to get into your hand right now, or else."

Blinking, Hermione nodded her head before looking down at the broom, held her hand over it, and whispered, almost inaudibly, "Up." The broom snapped into her hand so fast she was left blinking and doing a double-take at it.

Once everyone had their brooms, Madam Hooch went around showing everyone how to mount their brooms and the proper way to position themselves on it. All of the Gryffindors grinned openly when she coolly informed Malfoy that he'd been doing it wrong for years.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle... three... two..."

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle... twelve feet... twenty feet. Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp,

slip sideways off the broom and...

_NO!_ Harry didn't bother wondering if he'd thought it or screamed it out, but he wouldn't let Neville get hurt again because of his carelessness. He wasn't even conscious of making any sort of decision, he just found himself staring at a falling Longbottom one moment, and then the bluish-white plasma flame was wrapped tight around him and he felt it pushing against the ground and gravity and he met Neville halfway to the ground. Though it was more like he tackled him mid-air and then held on to him, the plasma pushing against gravity increasing in strength as they continued to fall, but thanks to Harry, at a much slower rate than normal.

Finally, they landed with a heavy thud, but with not even enough force to cause bruises. Both boys fell to the ground the moment their feet touched the scorched grass, Neville trembling a bit, but Harry felt a little bit sick, like the time Dudley had kicked him in the stomach after he'd been working all day in the yard, having 'missed' breakfast and lunch.

"Oh... bugger..." Harry whimpered, doing his best not to show everyone what he'd had for breakfast.

"Mr. Potter! Mr. Longbottom! What in the name of Quidditch...?" Madam Hooch raced up to them, staring like she'd seen Peeves naked, or something worse.

"Are you two all right?" Hermione asked from behind Madam Hooch. Everyone, save the Slytherins, had raced up behind Madam Hooch to check up on the boys.

"Everyone, back in line!" the teacher shouted.

Instantly, nearly everyone raced back to their places, especially the Slytherins. Everyone except Ron and Hermione, both who were still hovering around Harry and Neville on the ground. "We're fine..." Harry grumbled. "I'm fine... Just... not entirely sure what just happened."

"What kind of magic was that you think you were using there, Mr. Potter?" Madam Hooch demanded, ignoring Ron and Hermione for the moment.

"Magic?" he repeated dully. "What do you... oh. You mean the white flame stuff?" he asked.

She nodded curtly, watching as the other two Gryffindors helped both boys get to their feet.

Harry just shrugged. "It's been happening since this summer, actually. And I didn't really do or use anything, ma'am. I just reacted. I saw Neville falling, next thing I know, I'm catching him, then we're on the ground. Honestly, I didn't try and do anything, it just happened." Unfortunately, it was the truth, but the next time, he would make sure it was very much intentional. Nobody at the Research Center had ever really thought of showing him how to use his powers to _fly_ before!

Madam Hooch, however, seemed to be mulling over something, before finally deciding, "Must have been a case of accidental magic then. Never seen anybody fly without a broom before though... Are either of you injured? If you feel you can no longer fly, I'll take you to the hospital wing, but..."

"No ma'am," Harry immediately protested. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to stay and finish today's lesson. Right, Neville?"

Neville, who'd been rather green the whole day and was looking about half ready to take Madam Hooch up on her offer of going to the hospital wing if it meant he didn't have to get on that broom again, stared wide-eyed at Harry for a moment, before reluctantly nodding his head at Madam Hooch.

"Very well then," she sighed. "Back in line then. Can't very well deduct points for this sort of thing, but Mr. Longbottom? If you ever do something like that again, I guarantee you will regret it, and not just because Mr. Potter won't catch you next time."

The flying lesson after that point was much more subdued. Madam Hooch had them going up and down, back and forth, making wide turns, short turns, and working them through the very basics of flight control, when a Third Year student suddenly raced up to her, whispered something and handed her a note.

"Everyone, ON THE GROUND _NOW_!" she shouted out loud. The moment everyone was on the ground and dismounted from their brooms, she held up the note, saying, "I have something that needs to be taken care of immediately. None of you is to move while I'm gone! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Understood?"

The moment she was gone, and out of earshot, Malfoy turned on and started making fun of Neville. "Great flying there, Longbottom!" he and the other Slytherins started laughing.

"Shut up, Malfoy!" snapped Parvati Patil.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced, pug-nosed bully of a girl. "Never thought you'd like fat crybabies, Parvati!"

Neville was red-faced from all this, but then things got worse.

"Lookie here," Malfoy pulled out Neville's Rememberall, a gift from his grandmother. "Don't mind me looking at it now, do you Longbottom?"

"Give that back, Malfoy!" shouted Harry.

Malfoy smiled nastily, and then before anybody could stop him, grabbed his broom and took to the air, with the Rememberall. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom there to find later. How about... up a tree?"

"No, don't! You'll get in trouble!" Hermione protested when Harry grabbed his own broom.

Harry knew from the earlier lessons that flying was actually easier than most made it out to be. But Madam Hooch's lessons were constrained and, if she could help it she never let them get higher than five feet off the ground. Taking to the air some fifty feet up, almost equal with the battlements, Harry discovered something; this was easy, this was wonderful! He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground and an admiring whoop from Ron.

He turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy looked stunned. "Give it here," Harry called, "or I'll knock you off that broom!"

"Oh, yeah?" said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.

Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfay like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.

"No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy," Harry called. The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.

"Catch it if you can, then!" he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Again, Harry didn't even bother to think as instincts he never knew he had took over. His eyes immediately locked on to the clear crystal ball, no bigger than a tennis ball, and it was already starting to fall from over one hundred feet in the air. Somehow, he knew the angle it was taking and he knew exactly where to put himself to catch it. The problem being, that happened to be less than ten feet from the ground, and he had to move _very_ fast to catch it in time.

With no more thought than that, he leaned forward on his broom and shot toward the ground in a steep and increasingly faster dive. The shouts of those below disappeared, nothing existed save the wind, his broom, and that ball. He leaned forward off the broom, knowing that it would increase his speed by another second or two, and he was still ten feet away from the ball by the time it reached its own terminal velocity.

Sheer _inches_ from the ground, Harry's fingers finally curled around the Rememberall and he banked hard, flipping himself and the broom around to keep from crashing into the ground and taking a dirt nap. Once he was no longer in danger of breaking his neck, Harry swung around and shot fast as lightning back towards the group of First Years. Idly, he noticed the Rememberall turn red in his hands. Wondering what he'd forgotten, he looked around from where he hovered on the school broom. He suddenly remembered when he saw Professor McGonagall stalking towards him and the other First Years.

Whoops.

_Later that night_

"I have got to be out of my mind," Harry muttered as he, Ron, Neville, and Hermione all snuck through the Hogwarts corridors, after hours, all for a midnight duel with Malfoy.

"See, even Harry sees this isn't worth it," said Hermione. "Let's go back now before we're caught!"

"And give Malfoy the satisfaction of calling us coward? I don't think so!" said Ron hotly.

"I... I... I-I think we sh-should g-go back t-too, Ron," Neville stuttered.

"No, I'm definitely out of my gourd," confirmed Harry. "How the hell does that cat keep finding us!"

They'd been running from Filch and Mrs. Norris ever since they'd stepped out of the portrait hole in Gryffindor tower, it seemed. After it was revealed that Harry _wasn't_ being expelled, Malfoy had come up to him and Ron during lunch to challenge him to a duel. Before Harry could get a word in edgewise, Ron had accepted for him, and claimed the position as his Second. When they'd tried to leave the common room, Hermione had caught them, and finally decided to come with them, if only to "keep them out of trouble."

On their way, they'd come across an obviously lost Neville Longbottom, who'd been released from the hospital wing from yet another Potions accident, thankfully with nary a scratch, only to get completely lost in the large, dark castle, with no way of knowing how to get back to the Gryffindor common room. Not about to let him get caught instead of them, and because Harry wanted to look out for his fellow Gryffindor, they brought him along.

They'd made it to the trophy room, the designated location of their supposed duel, only to wait a full ten minutes with nobody but Filch to show up. Now, Harry'd gotten the impulsive idea to track Malfoy down to have their duel, even if they had to do it in the Slytherin common room. Unfortunately, the only thing they did know was that the Slytherin dorms were in the dungeons, and not much more than that.

Thanks to Filch and his cat though, they now found themselves on the right hand side of the third floor corridor, with the cat closing in on them. They were trying to find someplace to hide, but the only door was locked. Harry was about to risk just frying the cat, (he was that frustrated with it), when Hermione stepped forward with her wand.

"Oh, give it here," she said, pointing her wand at the lock and cast, "_Alohomora_!"

A brief jet of light and the door was unlocked. They slipped inside and listened for Filch to leave.

It took a few minutes, but finally, they heard the old caretaker walk away, noisily muttering about 'Damn kids and their magic!' and took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief. A sigh that turned into a gasp from Neville, causing Ron, Harry and Hermione to look at him in concern, before turning around to take in what had made him gasp in the first place. A giant three-headed dog with really, really big teeth, standing/sitting/laying on top of a trap door.

"Why is there a hellhound in the school?" asked Harry, his voice far too calm for the situation.

The dog barked.

The kids screamed, the dog barked some more. Hermione cried, Neville whimpered, and Ron screamed again. Harry looked back at his friends, took one look at the dog, and made a stupid decision. He stepped forward, within reach of the massive beast, and shouted in a loud voice, "STOP!"

The big three-headed dog retreated just a bit and stared at the young wizard that dared face it. The middle head started to growl, the left head stared, and the right head barked again.

Harry frowned, almost growling himself now, and he tried to shout the same way he had to his... Aunt and Vernon the day they'd torn up his letter. As a result, the plasma flame immediately flashed into existence around him as he bellowed, "I! SAID! STOP!"

The dog didn't step back, but it did flinch just a bit. At least the middle head wasn't growling anymore.

"SIT!" Harry commanded, his plasma flame sparking a small thunderbolt. The dog was immediately on its haunches, staring intently at the small wizard with a big voice.

"STAY!" he told it. Then, on an impulse, he added, "Good dog. We're going now. Good dog. Keep guarding whatever it is you're guarding. Good dog." He quickly turned around, his plasma flame fading as he stepped back towards his friends. "Let's go. Now." They didn't argue.

Once they were safely back in the common room, having told the Fat Lady that they'd been doing extra credit for Astronomy as an excuse, they all sagged in vaunted relief.

"Ron, if you _ever_ accept a challenge for me again, I will learn the worst hex there possibly is and use it on you daily until we graduate. Is that understood?" Harry threatened his friend.

"Yeah, mate. No problem. Won't ever happen again," Ron promised, so pale his freckles stood out in stark contrast. At least now they knew why Dumbledore had warned them about staying away from that corridor, unless some wanker wanted to die a horrible death.

"Why _is_ there a hellhound in the school?" Harry asked suddenly, from his position in the chair by the fire.

"I don't know," Hermione was almost shivering in her robes. "There was nothing about that kind of thing in _Hogwarts, A History_. There was a subsection on how the Forbidden Forest is often used as a sort of game preserve for various magical creatures. But I didn't even know something like that existed here!"

"Read the _Illiad_," Harry grumbled.

"What's that?" Ron asked.

"A story about Greek mythology," Hermione immediately answered. "You've read the Illiad?"

Harry shrugged. "Had to do an extra credit book report for Literature class one time. It was either read the whole story and summarize it into a report, or accept a failing grade. Failure was not an actual option at the time. Besides, it was fun reading about Achilles and the whole Trojan War. There was also mention of Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound that guards the Underworld, which Hercules had to retrieve as one of his Trials, I believe."

"Which is why you knew it was guarding something," she surmised. He shrugged, but nodded his head.

"Where'd you learn that unlocking charm, anyway?" Ron wanted to know.

Either she'd been really working on her attitude, or she was just way to exhausted to pull out her bossy demeanor. "I memorized the Charms book, and I've been practicing my magic ever since this summer when I got my letter. If I'd have known what was behind that locked door, however, I would've let Filch find us and dock as many points as he pleased."

"Well, all the same, I'm glad you didn't," said Ron.

"Harry?" she asked after a few minutes silence.

"Hm?" he turned from the fire to face her.

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"That white flame aura," she reminded him.

"Oh," Harry winced, scratching the back of his head, "Uh, like Madam Hooch said; accidental magic."

"Oh," she sounded disappointed.

"Didn't look like accidental magic," Ron pointed out.

Harry just shrugged. "I s'pose it's different with everyone, then. Look, it's late, and we're all tired, especially after the fright we just had. Let's all go to bed now."

"All right," the others agreed, for what could have been the first time ever. Neville had been awfully quiet since they'd gotten back, but at the same time he looked enormously relieved to be back in what was supposed to be a safe area. After a scare like that, it would be normal for anyone to be more than a little subdued. All the same, Harry made sure to help the other Gryffindor up the stairs to their dorm.

Quietly, they all snuck back up the stairs and back into their dorms and then silently into their beds where they fell asleep the moment their heads touched the pillows.

_Please Read & Review!_


	4. Emergency

_Hogwarts_

_First Week of October_

After the weekend, on Monday morning for breakfast, Harry got the best gift he'd ever imagined, and no, not the complete collection of the _Ranma ½ _manga series with limited edition issues. He got his very first broom; a _Nimbus 2000_ racing broom. Malfoy was insanely jealous.

Classes continued, some getting more difficult, such as Potions, where Harry had taken it upon himself to not only get a perfect grade for every potion, but to make sure every other Gryffindor in the class got the same. An impossible task, most would say, but at the very least he made sure that there weren't any more explosions or melting cauldrons. Not surprisingly, this required just as much work outside of class as it did under Snape's long and crooked nose. It wasn't what most of the First Year Gryffindor class wanted to be doing with their free time, but Neville certainly attested that it was well worth it.

Some classes became easier, such as Astronomy, what with his globe of the universe in hand. While others merely fit somewhere in between, easier only because the students had adapted to the pace of the work and the material being taught. Charms was up to learning a new spell every class period, with the homework simply being practicing until they had the spell down pat. Transfiguration on the other hand, many were still having trouble turning a matchstick into a needle.

All in all, his magic skill was proceeding about average, if he had to guess, seeing as he only ever managed to earn points maybe once every other class period, and he certainly wasn't anywhere near Hermione's fastidious dedication to having the right answer _every bloody time_!

While the scare with the hellhound had cooled any tensions between Harry, Ron, Naville and the brainy muggleborn girl, she still had an attitude problem and tended to rub the facts about some lessons in the faces of her peers. At least that's how it looked to everyone else, Ron especially. Frankly, it was starting to rub Harry the wrong way too, but he wasn't about to criticize someone just because they liked to learn.

All of that was secondary though, to Harry's concerns about his _other_ powers. To begin with, his powers had done more than spark up once or twice when he was angry or emotional. They sparked up at least a few times during every single class, and there were times when he woke up with scorch marks on his sheet and a few melted hangings. Plus, his dorm mates were starting to complain of the heat in their room and Seamus had gone to the hospital wing for first degree burns that Madam Pomfrey waved off as a sunburn.

Harry knew he could turn 'on' and turn 'off' his powers at will, but he'd never considered the fact that as he grew, his powers might grow so instead of flipping a switch, he might have to actually exert a force of will to keep them 'off' as well. The afternoon of the day Seamus had come back from the hospital wing, as soon as classes were over for the day, Harry almost ran straight to Professor McGonagall's office.

Hermione, seeing the star of Gryffindor house run off like that, and to their head of house no less, quietly followed, concerned that there might be something serious going on. That it might also involve the giant hellhound on the third floor corridor also occurred to her, but if the boys had been quiet about it for this long, she doubted Harry Potter of all people would break unless it was something big.

Ron watched as Harry bolted out of the last class and then noticed Hermione Granger sneaking off after his best friend. Worried, and wondering, Ron glanced around to see if anyone was looking his way, and then with a heavy sigh (he'd promised never to use these unless it was an emergency), he pulled out a sticker sheet, pulled off one that looked like a closed eye, and stuck it on his forehead. Instantly, he was under the therein contained Disillusionment charm of the sticker, little more than blurry lines you had to squint to see at all. He quickly raced after Hermione, Harry too far ahead to see for now.

Harry burst into his teacher's classroom, so glad that no one else was in there that he forgot about closing the door after him, though he really meant to. He didn't want to risk someone overhearing his confession, but he was freaking out too much to pay close enough attention.

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall greeted him with her usual stern look, "Is there something I can do for you?"

"I need to speak with Professor Dumbledore, ma'am. It's rather urgent," he told her breathlessly.

Looking up at the surprising request, she folded up the papers she'd just finished grading and put them off to the side. "Might I inquire as to why you need to speak with the Headmaster so urgently?" she put forth.

Harry took a deep breath, not helped by his shortness of it already, but he was seriously scared and he had limited options, not knowing any other way of gaining access to Professor Dumbledore, short of going around the castle screaming his name. Still... he was reluctant to bring another person in on his secret. And just because he hadn't met such circumstances yet, didn't mean he was unaware of the horror stories of those that came out about their mutancy. Around the world, the most common reaction tended to be ostracizing them and in extreme cases even persecution.

Finally, he could see no other option, and he was not about to start poisoning his dorm mates and friends with cosmic radiation when there was something he could do about it, _before_ it became a problem.

"I'm a mutant," he told her.

Blinking, McGonagall sat back, staring at her student and one of her Gryffindors. Of all the excuses she'd expected to come out of his mouth, that most certainly had not been one of them.

"I see," she said.

"Professor Dumbledore already knows," he said. "Thing is, lately, I haven't had much time or opportunity to practice with my mutant powers, and I think that... well, I think that I've started to leak, when I'm asleep anyway. Seamus had to go to the Hospital Wing today for what Madam Pomfrey called a 'sunburn'," he used air-quotes, "Seamus hasn't been outside enough to get even a red neck! Last night he was as white as you or me, this morning he's as red as a tomato, and his bed is right next to mine!"

"Are you claiming to have pulled a prank on another student, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall asked, her lips pressed into a thin white line.

Harry stared incredulously at the head of house.

"I'm saying, I'm starting to lose control of my powers, and I need help," he told her.

"And Professor Dumbledore can give you that help?" she asked.

"He can get me to Muir Island where I can get the help I need!" Harry shouted, then immediately regretted it. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I just... I just don't want to hurt anyone. At first I was able to control my powers just fine, but... I don't want to hurt anyone. Professor Dumbledore already knows, he's part of the bloody ICW for crying out loud! If he can't get _me_ to Muir Island, then at the least he can get somebody _here_ to help me."

"You seem quite certain of this, Mr. Potter," said McGonagall, clearly not believing a word he said.

Until he ignited his plasma flame and began to hover a few inches off the ground. "You could say that," he commented with a wry grin, before letting himself drop and the flame dissipate.

Gaping open mouthed at him, she quickly closed her mouth and shook her head. "That... Rolanda said it was accidental magic..." she gasped at him.

"It's not magic," he said. "It's plasma. As in star plasma. As in radiation. As in radiation sickness and possibly death if I don't get this under control. So far it's just been plasma blasts, thunderbolts and an aurora kind of thing, but apparently when I'm asleep I can't quite control it as well. Please, Professor McGonagall, I need to see Professor Dumbledore as soon as possible. Please!"

Gulping, the Transfiguration teacher nodded her head and got to her feet. She stumbled for a moment, hitting the side of her desk, but quickly put it past her as she pulled herself together and was soon leading her student out of her office and down the hall. Thankfully, they went the left instead of right, as Hermione (and Ron) had been hiding just to the right of the open door to the office, having heard everything spoken inside.

_Headmaster's office_

"Lemon drops," McGonagall said to the face of the stone gargoyle. To Harry's surprise, it immediately jumped to the side, revealing the hidden staircase it had been guarding. McGonagall quickly directed him up the stairs, and neither noticed how a distortion of air slipped by just before the gargoyle slammed back into place, right in Hermione's face as she raced to catch up.

Up a single flight of stairs, Harry soon found himself facing a large, ornate oak door, which McGonagall immediately opened to reveal a very unique room. It was a large and beautiful circular room, full of funny little noises. A number of curious silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke. The walls were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, all of whom were snoozing gently in their frames. There was also an enormous, claw-footed desk, and, sitting on a shelf behind it, a shabby, tattered wizard's hat—the Sorting Hat.

Behind the desk sat Albus Dumbledore, looking at the pair as though expecting them.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, what can I do for you?" he asked with a smile, his bright blue eyes twinkling.

Deciding to get it over with as quickly as possible and all at once, like with a band-aid, he said, "I need to go back to Muir Island, sir."

The twinkling dulled a little bit, but the smile remained, as Dumbledore asked, "Are things truly that difficult for you here, Harry? While I can understand..."

"No sir, that's not it," Harry interrupted. "Everything is fine, I mean the classes aren't too hard... except for Potions, but everything has been brilliant here! No, I need to go back to Muir Island because... I'm losing control of my powers."

Where Professor McGonagall had expected the same disbelief and disregard she herself had felt at such claims, she found herself shocked when Dumbledore immediately got to his feet and approached Harry rather hastily. "What brings you to this conclusion, Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore asked immediately, while waving his wand through several diagnostic spells over Harry.

"Well, sir, for the past few days... my bed's been receiving scorch marks while I'm asleep, sometimes even the hangings are melted off come morning, the other boys have been complaining that our dorm room is the hottest room in the entire castle, not just in Gryffindor tower, and... and last night, Seamus Finnigan, the boy whose bed is right next to mine, went to bed last night as white as you or me, and woke up with first degree burns over most of his body."

"Consciously, I can make sure my powers are turned off and suppressed, but apparently when I'm asleep..." Harry trailed off, looking down and feeling quite ashamed.

"Hm, yes, I see the problem. Give me a few moments while I contact Charles and Moira. This could become quite serious if not taken care of sooner, rather than later." Dumbledore then went back around his desk and retrieved what looked like a futuristic walkie talkie. "Now how do you turn this blasted thing on?" he mumbled to himself for a moment before finding the right switch. "Ah! There we go. Hello? Charles? Anyone there? Hello?"

A moment or two of dead air and silence, and then the radio crackled to life in Dumbledore's hand.

"Hello, may I ask who's calling?" a familiar voice replied

"Forge!" Harry enthusiastically called, smiling at hearing the familiar voice after so long.

Smiling, Dumbledore spoke into the radio once more. "Uh, Mr. Forge, correct? This is Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Harry's school? I need to speak with either Charles or Moira at once if you please."

"Something going on with the little tyke?" Forge asked, while sounding as though he were moving very fast at the same time. From the sounds of it, Harry thought, he was having to run all the way from his workshop back up to the Lab, which is where Moira spent most of her time.

"Nothing of serious consequence, there are simply some matters of his, shall we call it his physical abilities, that need to addressed sooner rather than later," Dumbledore answered.

"Meaning his powers? Don't worry, this is a secure line, I made sure of that. Just a sec, here's Moira," Forge stopped speaking as he handed the radio over to Moira, wherever they were.

"Dumbledore? What's happened wit Harry? Ah swear, if those bloody relatives a his are messin' wit him..." the woman's Irish temper was getting the better of her.

"Dr. MacTaggert, I assure you, everything is well in hand. Except for the fact that it seems when Harry goes to sleep, he tends to unconsciously activate his powers so that his sheets are scorched and that a dorm mate of his woke up with a sunburn this morning," the old wizard explained the situation.

"WHAT?" Moira's shout almost broke the speakers on the radio. "Get him _here_, _NOW_!"

"She's a bit protective of me," Harry sheepishly scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"I can see that. Minerva, if you will excuse me, I am afraid that I am going to be rather busy for the rest of the day. Also, while I expect that Harry should be back by nightfall, he will be absent for the rest of the day. I do apologize about the abruptness of it all, and I promise I'll explain later," he was explaining to the Transfiguration teacher while he pulled out, of all things, an old sock, before waving his wand over it a few times and holding it out for Harry to hold onto.

"This is now what is called a Portkey, Harry. Basically, it's just a simple, unremarkable artifact that has been enchanted to take whoever is holding onto it from one location to another, usually a great distance away. Just grab hold of it, and make sure that you don't move and stand very still. It's a bit unpleasant at first, but with the wards around Hogwarts, it's the fastest means we have of traveling to Muir Island. Have a pleasant afternoon, Minerva. Activate!"

Then, with a sharp tug from right behind their navels, they vanished with a loud crack.

_Muir Island_

They arrived in the same arboretum where Dumbledore had appeared the first time Harry met the wizard. Moments after their arrival, Moira, Banshee, and Forge all rushed in, the latter two in attempt to hold back the auburn haired doctor from attacking the much older wizard standing beside Harry.

"Hi Moira," Harry greeted the overly caring doctor before she could speak.

Before he knew it, he was wrapped up in a bone-crushing hug that he definitely hadn't been expecting. After she finally let him go, Harry turned to the men and said, "Sorry, I like you guys and all, but I think I'll pass on the hugs this time." They laughed and agreed on just shaking hands, this time.

"Now," Moira snapped at the two wizards, "tell me exactly what's been goin' on, and what happened, specifically. Ah've already got Beast on the line, so he'll be available te consult wit' durin' the analysis. Ye know the drill by now Harry. Go on, off with ye now."

Harry nodded and walked off to the lab. Part of the time during the summer had been spent just as often in the Lab as the Danger Room, doing tests and analyzing his powers and his basic limitations. It had been less of a chore than anything his Aunt made him do around the house, and frankly, between Beast's humor and Moira's motherly affection, it was almost as fun as blowing stuff up and shooting targets in the Danger Room. Besides, he wanted to learn as much about his powers as he could, same as they all did, and they never denied him answers to any questions he asked, always making sure that he understood those answers too.

By the time they'd all gotten to the Lab, Harry was already mostly hooked up to the Scanner, the special device designed to determine the exact nature of a mutant's powers, and once they were all ready, it was turned on. Which more or less meant, for Harry, that he had to stand as perfectly still as he could while a bunch of lights flashed up and down all around him.

On the other side of the scanner, Moira was reading the results and feeding them to Beast, who was over in his own lab in the Xavier Institute in Manchester, New York. She was also monitoring the depth of the scanning feed, controlling how far into Harry's physiology they went.

"Well," commented Beast from over the video conference, "it seems that Harry's powers have maintained their rather dramatic pace of enhancement and evolution. Plus, as I'm sure we can all see, he's no longer just creating the plasma around himself any longer, he's started to internalize and store the excess plasma in his cells. In anyone else, this would be signs of severe radiation exposure and a precursor of severe cascade organ failure and cellular degradation. For Harry? The Fifth Element behaves like your standard bio-electrical reactions between cells."

"Aye," agreed Moira, taking a look at further information. "Beast, take a look at his nervous system for a moment. Between the excess energy he's storin' an his magic an whatever amount a electrical output tis normal for a boy his age, he's started te generate a low-yield energy field around his body."

"I see that," said Beast. "At the moment, it's little more than background radiation, the same type of stuff we walk through every day, just by living on the surface of the planet. Though, combined with perhaps an occasional spike from igniting further plasma, prolonged exposure could _potentially_ result in a higher dosage that would eventually cause physical damage to those around him. Nothing that would happen overnight though, at least not at these levels."

"We need te scan him when he's sleepin'," said Moira, with sudden insight.

"I'll make the necessary changes to the MRI," Forge said as he went off to do just that. Unlike most other hospitals and places that have MRIs throughout the world, Muir Island has a full-body machine that has adjustable settings, and most importantly, the most comfortable bed to lay on during the procedure.

For Harry, the chamber finally cut off, and that usually meant that he was done for the time being, so he quickly disconnected himself from the scanner and then slipped out to get dressed. Only to find out that he needed to, at the least, take his robes back off so he could go into a different scanner. When Moira suggested he change into his pajamas, he gave her a weird look, but settled with just leaving on his trouser and shirt.

He was placed into what he thought was the MRI, but seeing Forge still tinkering with it a bit, he realized that it had been changed and so he settled down into the bed and relaxed. Then they knocked him out with gas to get the necessary results as fast as possible.

"Okay," said Moira, looking at the monitor read-outs, "he's just entered REM. Plasma spike!"

"I see it," Beast assured her.

"Fascinating,"the blue-furred scientist an ocean away, remarked on the readings he was receiving. "The plasma that we noticed earlier as being contained within his body, every last molecule of it is now surrounding him in a corona of energy."

"Only, it's not radiatin' out," said Moria. "Tis more like it's protectin' him, like a force field a some kind."

"Possibly, it could be," Beast remarked. "We've seen plasma-based force fields before, albeit technologically manifested. Harry's powers could be unconsciously trying to manifest the ability. Although given that it is still part of his primary powers, I'd call it more of a skill than raw ability."

"And he's doing it _unconsciously_?" Forge exclaimed.

"Told you to just give it time," Beast referred to his earlier comment about waiting for Harry to shock them all again.

"Beast, ah'm goin' in a bit deeper," Moira told him as she adjusted the scanner's depth. She stopped it at a certain point, and gasped. "Beast! Take a look at this! Ah thought ah'd gone an seen everythin' a mutant could throw at us, but this takes the cake!"

"The plasma is still bein' _generated_ by Harry strippin' the surroundin' matter of extra electrons and excitin' the particles," she continued. "But his body tis still absorbin' those particles, and then doin' some kind of bio-kinetic exchange! Ah've seen the stats of both Summers brothers, absorbin' and internalizen solar and cosmic radiation. Ah've even seen mutants that could generate and absorb plasma without batten an eye. _This_ is somethin' else entirely!"

"It's his magic," a calm voice behind her spoke.

She wheeled around and saw the old wizard Albus Dumbledore standing there, looking over her shoulder at the results. "How d'ye know that?" she demanded.

He gave her a look, like an adult being asked by a child how they knew the answer to the simplest of all questions. "How I know, is for later debate, my dear lady," he calmly answered her. "What it means is simply that Harry's magic is somehow intermingling with his mutant powers in a way that, even myself, I've never seen before. And while I'm not _that_ old, I do have a few friends that have a hefty amount of experience."

"Ah, but the ultimate conundrum," Beast spoke up from the video connection, "what exactly does that mean for Harry?"

"The ultimate conundrum, of course, deserves the ultimate solution," Dumbledore replied with a twinkling-eyed grin. "Harry has only just begun his magical education, but it is quite obvious even from his preliminary grades that he is quite gifted and a very powerful wizard with a great deal of potential. Given also that he is so young, would you not agree that he is also destined to be a very powerful mutant?"

"Eleven, while not the youngest, _is_ a young age to manifest," Forge pointed out.

"And his powers are already very close to Alpha class," Beast added.

"So," Moira concluded, "as his magical powers grow, so will his mutant powers, and vice versa, is that it? Saints above, this just made things a helluva lot harder than they needed te be!"

"I see that I'm going to be needing to get Harry a training room sooner rather than later," Dumbledore commented. "Likewise, if he is amenable, it would probably be a good idea if Harry spent a portion of his summers between terms either here, or at another location to receive further training in his mutant powers."

"For the immediate future," Beast suggested, "I would have Harry work on furthering the completion of this skill his magic seems to be demanding of his mutant abilities. Is there some kind of spell that would demand this kind of reaction, do you know Professor Dumbledore?"

The silver-haired wizard could only shrug. "Alas, I am at a loss. There are, of course, shielding charms, _Protego_ being the most common, but it is a Fourth Year spell, and Harry has neither the need nor the use for it at this time. He's only just completed the first few spells of Charms, casting and controlling sparks and the like, and he's not due to learn levitating charm for another week or two. Transfiguration, I've heard that he only completed the third class assignment day before last. Likewise, for all of his other classes, he is doing very well, but nothing as extraordinary as you're referring to."

"Then perhaps it could be somehow psychological?" surmised Beast.

At that, Dumbledore adopted a rather curious expression. "Perhaps... Mr. Potter has been seen to display some rather... unique personality traits in class and in general."

"Such as?" Moira asked.

"He seems to be rather... how shall I put it? Protective? ... of his classmates and dorm mates as well. His Potions professor has reported that half the time his attention isn't so much on his own potion or preparations for it, but on those of his fellow Gryffindors in the class. His other professors have reported somewhat similar behavior from him. There is also the fact that he was in a near panic to find me when he learned that one of his year mates was unintentionally injured by this power boost we've noted here."

"Yes, I surmise that once Harry learns how to create fully functional force fields, he'll no longer be leaking so much energy." Beast hypothesized. "In fact it should go right back to his normal levels and form of clean plasma that doesn't give off anything more than a bit of heat and light. We do, however, need to be a bit more proactive in teaching him to control his powers, though."

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed.

"I'll see what I can do about developing an upgraded version of that holo-box we gave him for his birthday, Beast," Forge promised. "One that can be equipped with force fields of its own so it can actually contain his power. It won't be a true Danger Room, but it will at least allow him to practice new skills without blowing up the whole castle."

"Likewise, I'll see about scheduling Harry some time during each day where he can set aside to train himself, and use that device in his exercises. Now I just need to think of where to put him for the time being..." Dumbledore trailed off.

"There's just one last thing we need te check," said Moira as she turned back to the scanner and went to the maximum setting to take a few final readings. Only to be shocked once again by what was discovered.

"Saint's preserve us! Beast! Get Charles on the line, _NOW_!" she commanded.

"What is it, my dear?" Dumbledore questioned, concerned.

"That!" she pointed at the screen with the test results.

"Oh my," the old wizard paled significantly.

_Please Read & Review!_


	5. Halloween

_Hogwarts_

Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts, the temporary disillusionment sticker charm Ron had put on his forehead had finally worn off and unfortunately, he was still standing in the Headmaster's office with his head of house, Professor McGonagall. Thankfully, she was still staring at the spot where Harry and the Headmaster had disappeared from, using a Portkey, so he had maybe a few seconds to duck out of sight or even get back down the stairs and past the gargoyle.

Moving as swiftly and as silently as he was able, he snuck out the still open door and still trying to make as little noise as possible from his footfalls on the stone steps, he got all the way to the bottom until he came to the backside of the gargoyle statue guarding the entrance to the Headmaster's office. Knowing how things tended to work at Hogwarts, Ron just tried to more or less shove it out of the way while wishing real hard he could get out before Professor McGonagall caught him there.

It paid off when, just as suddenly as before, the statue jumped to the side and Ron was free and clear to leave, only to bodily collide with none other than the brainy know-it-all with a cute smile. Not that he cared about that sort of thing, and her attitude sucked anyway!

Before she could scream and start scolding him for who knows what, he physically grabbed her, putting his hand over her mouth to keep her from making any noise, and shoved her and himself into the nook just behind a standing piece of armor. Five seconds later, Professor McGonagall exited the stairs and turned and walked briskly in the other direction from their hiding spot. Once he heard her walking away and not coming back, he finally let go of Hermione and her cute frowning mouth. Not that he cared about that sort of thing!

"What did you think you were doing, Ronald Weasley!" she near-screamed at him, reminding herself to keep her voice down at the last possible second.

"Why should I tell you?" he reacted defensively, still on edge from his almost getting caught.

"Were you following me?" she rounded on him. "_I_ was following Harry and Professor McGonagall because I needed to verify something. You were following me, weren't you? How else could you even be in the same place as them before me? How _did_ you get in there anyway?"

"It's the Headmaster's office," he shrugged as he turned and went down the hallway opposite from which McGonagall had went. "Everybody knows that."

"What were you doing in there then?" she pestered him, following along.

"None of your business!" he growled.

"Are you always this polite, or am I special in some way?" she sarcastically remarked. "Do you know anything about Harry? I mean, _really_ know him? I know there have been those incidents of accidental magic, but my magic never behaved that way, and I've been doing some reading on the various recorded incidents of accidental magic, and nothing in them really match up to what Harry's done, especially not when he actually flew and caught Neville like that, and..."

"Do you _ever_ shut up?" Ron snapped at her.

She halted abruptly, and stared at him like the few times he'd crossed the line with his sister in teasing and verbally sparring with her. "Bugger," he muttered. "Look, I'm sorry, but you are a bit of a motormouth, and Harry's right, that attitude of yours isn't helping you one bit. Fine, you're smart! Thanks for sharing! Now stop making the rest of us feel inferior and look like stupid gits!"

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth went from quivering to a sharp frown.

"Apparently, some of you don't require as much of my help in doing that!" Hermione snapped at him, before spinning on her heel and storming off, much to Ron's relief.

"Blimey, that girl's bonkers," he muttered to himself as he tried to figure out where he was and how to get back to Gryffindor common room from here. "Bugger..."

_Muir Island_

_Danger Room (Prototype)_

Harry had woken up, still in the modified MRI scanner, and had gotten out, gotten dressed, and was then told the current working theory on what was happening to him and his powers. For the most part, he agreed, as he had been focusing a lot lately on 'protecting' his fellow Gryffindors and students. He also went and described him taking flight and catching Neville during their flying lessons, although with Professor Dumbledore there he decided to omit the mention of when he'd tamed the hellhound in the school just by igniting his plasma flame while on the run from Filch during the middle of the night, after curfew. On his way to an illegal duel against another First Year on top of that!

So, before the sun was even close to setting, he found himself back in his familiar blue and yellow Danger Room uniform and back in the Island's prototype version, while Moira called Brian and the rest of Excalibur in to do what they could to aid in this 'emergency' training session.

Banshee, Brian, Meggan, and Kitty all stayed in the control room, willing to offer advice when they could. Meanwhile, for the first time since he could recall, Harry found himself with a more than a few people in the Danger Room with him. Namely, Colossus, Brian's sister Betsy codenamed Psylocke, Dazzler, Nightcrawler, and a new man that he hadn't met before named Pete Wisdom.

"All right, so what do we do here?" Harry asked once everyone was assembled.

"Now," Psylocke answered him, "we try and get your powers to advance, as it were. The theory is that you're trying to create a force field subconsciously. Well, now we're going to try and have you do it consciously."

Harry thought it over for a bit, before nodding to himself and taking a few steps away from everybody else. Then he tried to do exactly what Psylocke told him to do, consciously create a plasma-based force field.

At first he just tried igniting his plasma flame and manipulating the flow in some way, but that felt wrong to him for some reason. Then he tried pumping out a constant stream of plasma in all directions, but all that did was flood the room with heat and light. He tried tapping into that internalized plasma they'd told him about, nothing. He tried imagining it to make it real, all he got was a headache. He tried creating a bubble of plasma, but it either popped or was nothing but his typical plasma ball. He even tried just snapping his fingers and waving his wand once. On Professor Dumbledore's advice he even tried the movements for the _Protego_ charm. Nothing.

"I don't understand, how am I supposed to do this?" he exclaimed, getting frustrated.

The others in the room were likewise getting frustrated, as after his first couple of silent attempts, everything else he tried had been at their suggestion.

"Well," Pete Wisdom spoke up, "everybody agrees that the whole reason he's trying to create a force field subconsciously in the first place, is because of psychological issues, because he basically wants to protect his friends, right?"

"Yes, so what's you're point?" Psylocke questioned.

"Why not put either him, or one of his friends here, in a semi-dangerous situation that tricks him into doing it instinctively," Wisdom suggested.

Silently, everyone was kicking their own butts in their heads for not coming up with that themselves much sooner. Then came the question, who would attack Harry or someone Harry cared about, with the intent to injure badly enough to scare the young mutant into triggering an instinct nobody was sure he had.

"Unh-uh!" Harry suddenly shouted when they began suggesting having Colossus punch Nightcrawler, or Wisdom throw his burning knives at Meggan or something like that. "You can throw those bloody knives at me all you want, and I'm used to getting pounded on by bullies at my old school. But you are NOT trying to kill each other in front of me just because of my problem here!"

Everybody, on the floor and in the control room, turned and gave each other knowing grins. They knew that Harry would just protest further if they bothered to debate it, and if they gave him reassurances, then there was a chance that his reaction might be tainted. So, it was all done on a whim, but before anybody could even bother saying the word 'Go' they were already moving, with Colossus running like an out of control train right at Harry, and Nightcrawler retrieving Meggan from the control room just in time to place her right next to the young mutant. At the exact same time, Dazzler started powering up a powerful beam of light from the thundering echoes of Colossus' footfalls while Wisdom charged a full spread of red-hot glowing energy blades.

Before Harry even had the chance to say or do anything to stop this, all of the attacks went from him, to straight for Meggan next to him. It didn't help that she moved away from him every time he tried to get between them and her, and he didn't know any kind of spells that could stop beams of light, energy blades, let alone a rampaging Colossus!

He had maybe four seconds to do something, either step in front of one of the attacks, shoot a few plasma arrows at the other, which still left another angle of attack open, provided he could even stop any of the other two. Meggan looked at him, briefly taking on the appearance of an innocent girl that deserved nothing more than to be loved and to live her life happily.

Rage sparked within his soul and his eyes flashed green for a moment as he _rammed_ all of his pent up energy outwards and with a feeling much like he got at school, which can only be described as an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness, he cast out his right hand and just like that, a clear yet solid force was cast between Meggan and all that stood before her. Colossus literally bounced off of it. Dazzler's beam of light reflected back towards her, and Wisdom's red-hot knives stuck in it for only a few moments before 'igniting' themselves and burning away to nothing.

Seeing that, the dark haired Englishman just grinned at the young mutant and then cast another barrage at both Meggan _and_ Harry! Harry didn't even bother taking down his force field around Meggan, it seemingly able to support itself for the moment, as he ignited his plasma flame and let his rage grow at the underhanded tactic from the older mutant.

Almost without conscious effort on his part, beyond the fact that he wanted it to happen, the fields formed tightly around his legs and feet especially, right before he _thrust_ as much power through his body as he could. The result was the bluish-white aura exploding around Harry, before another explosion launched him into the air, on a direct course for Pete Wisdom and the knives he'd thrown.

Working purely on instinct now, Harry clenched his right fist, knowing and forming another force field, around his fist this time, he cocked it back and then with another boost of thrust from his feet, he punched his force-field-encased fist forward, dissolving the red-hot energy blades like they were toothpicks made out of ice, and less than a second after that, collided with the mutant Peter Wisdom and sent him flying into the wall of the Danger Room. The far wall. Near the ceiling. Face first into it, too.

Taking a few moments to breathe, Harry cooled his temper, and as he did so, the effects of his powers also vanished, even the force fields protecting Meggan and his arm.

Once he was calm, he stood and turned to face Meggan and the others, besides Wisdom, in the room, and asked, "Are you all, alright?"

Meggan nodded, and stepped forward to hug Harry, despite his blush.

She told him, "You are a good person, Harry Potter. You protect your friends. You will never intentionally hurt them. Never forget that. You _are_ a good person."

He just grinned up at her for a moment, before he lost his composure and hugged her himself, squeezing his eyes shut to keep in the tears. He didn't want to lose anybody ever again.

Several hours later, Harry had finally been through his first Danger Room simulation, alongside Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Brian of course. They weren't about to throw him in the deep end without a lifeline. Even with the safety settings in place, there was a strong chance for serious injury in the simulation, and the three experienced members of Excalibur were just there to make sure that didn't happen to him.

For the most part it was pretty much him standing in the middle of the street in a major urban city while various holograms attacked him, ranging from street thugs and bullies, to FOH fanatics, to trained soldiers and police geared to take him out. They even let him fight a Sentinel at the end!

Just the one though, and Nightcrawler had to "distract" it for a bit while Brian and Colossus took out its blasters and other weapons, he'd still gotten to deliver the kill shot with a powerful plasma blast.

Nevertheless, by the time he stepped out of the Danger Room, his new skill with creating plasma force fields was improved to the point where he no longer worried about leaking radiation when he slept. He'd even discovered that he could sort of give himself the equivalent of plasma-armor that when combined with a bit of speed and ingenuity, gave him both extra durability and a bit of super strength too!

Finally, it was time for Dumbledore to take him back to Hogwarts, and he quickly made the rounds of goodbyes, and while he was still a bit sore over the tactic he'd tried, he was officially introduced to Pete Wisdom and at least forgave the man for his actions. After he'd apologized, of course.

They used the same old sock that Dumbledore had turned into a Portkey and after a moment of re-casting, a navel-tugging sensation and a loud crack, they were back in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Pleasantries were exchanged, and finally, Harry left and went straight to dinner in the Great Hall.

Where Ron and Hermione were both waiting for him.

He was just sitting down and said to the golden plate what he wanted for dinner when he was suddenly bombarded from two sides by the same question. "Where have you been?"

Ron and Hermione looked up, both standing on either side of the Boy Who Lived at the Gryffindor table. Almost in perfect mirror precision, they both crossed their arms and glared at the other with a frown. Still mirroring each other, they both took a seat, Ron on Harry's left, Hermione on his right, and spoke in odd unison once again, mostly because they weren't doing it on purpose.

"Well? Aren't you going to answer? Where have you been?"

His head moving rapidly back and forth in a head-shaking motion, Harry was too confused by the question in stereo to even begin formulating an answer. All he could really come up with was, "Huh?"

"Mate/Harry," the two spoke simultaneously again, "you've been gone for most of the afternoon, disappeared after the last class, after acting really strange for most of the day, and then went to Professor McGonagall and then you went to the Headmaster's office! Where have you been?"

"Would you two _please_ stop doing that?" Harry begged them. "Uncanny though it may be, it's creeping me out here. And how on earth did the two of you know I went to the Headmaster's office?"

"Uh... she/he started it! Did not! Did too! Stop that! Quit that or I'll... Hmph!" In perfect mirror unison, they both huffed, crossed their arms again, then spun on their seats to turn away from one another, which turned them away from Harry at the same time too.

Looking at their backs for a moment, Harry just shrugged and turned to his meal, grateful to be eating in silence rather than between an argument. Too bad he knew it wouldn't last.

Hermione, with her unquenchable curiosity, broke first. Turning back around less than a minute after huffing at Ron, she asked him, "So, Harry. What happened to you? Why did you go with Professor McGonagall to the Headmaster's office?"

"Hey, I was going to ask him that!" Ron spun around instantly to begin the argument all over.

Hermione, rather than propagate a meaningless activity, ignored him instead, focusing only on Harry.

"Well?" she begged.

"Medical reasons," was his only response, between bites, hoping they didn't notice his sweat.

"Then shouldn't you have gone to the medical wing or Madam Pomfrey?" she pointed out.

"Mate, just tell us, otherwise she's going to be bothering us all night," said Ron.

"Tell me how you knew I went to Professor McGonagall and then to Professor Dumbledore first and then I will tell you why," Harry said back to the two of them, not in the mood for their demanding attitudes.

Frowning, Hermione didn't even hesitate to say, "I noticed how you ran off during the last class and made your way to the most direct route there was to Professor McGonagall's office. I was worried that it had something to do with... you know what in the you know where on the third floor. Or some other emergency, since I've never seen you run off like that anywhere since you've been here."

Harry froze, realizing the young witch had a point. Him running off like that must have raised quite a few eyebrows and a bit of concern. Which was confirmed when Ron gave his reasons.

"After seeing first you, then the know-it-all here run off after you, I didn't know what to think, but I wasn't about to wait around to find out. I followed the both of you," he stopped speaking and dedicated more of his attention to eating his food then, but still kept a portion of it on his friend.

"Now what kind of medical reasons?" Hermione demanded to know. "Is it an illness? Are you sick? Did one of your relatives get sick? Do you need to use medication and it ran out? Does it have to do with your eyes or glasses? Or does it have to do with your strange bouts of 'accidental magic'?"

"The last one," Harry quickly inserted before she could ask another question.

"Do they have any clues as to what it might be that could be causing it, or even what it's doing? Maybe it's some form of high-class magic that is draining your magic reserves, or perhaps draining your magic and then forcing it to recharge itself much sooner and faster causing the strange effects? Does Professor Dumbledore have any clue as to what...?"

"Would you _just shut up_ for one bloody minute!" Ron exploded. "He might even deign to answer you, as Harry's the only bloody person in this whole house that actually bothers talkin' to you, in case you never noticed! But you just don't _shut up_ to let him even do that!"

"Ron!" Harry snapped at his friend. "Apologize, Now! That is not true in the slightest, now apologize!"

"No! Besides, why should I? Harry! She keeps going on and on and on and..."

"Fine!" Hermione interrupted, getting to her feet, her eyes glistening just a bit, "Fine! Just... Fine!"

Then she stormed out of the Great Hall, not bothering to look at anyone else. Harry hit Ron and shoved him off the seat and onto the floor. "Prat," he grumbled to his, not entirely deserving of it, friend.

"What?" said Ron, utterly perplexed.

_Hogwarts_

_Halloween_

The next two weeks were a rather interesting affair. For one, the 1st Years boy's dorm went from being the hottest room in the castle, to being almost as cold as any dungeon in comparison. Dean, Neville, and Seamus were all at a loss to explain it, except that maybe it had to do with the waning summertime heat. Ron, for some reason, held back from either complaining or making comment on the sudden change, though whenever the others brought it up, Harry sometimes caught him staring and giving him a couple of strange looks.

Also, Harry's time was further fractured, as he was suddenly stuck with a whole new class period, which to everyone else was called "Study Hall" and was now his last class of the day, every day. Thankfully, it did not cut, too much, into Quidditch practice, which he had three times a week, more often than not on the weekends and then a day during the week.

Study hall itself actually consisted of Harry taking his birthday present from Beast and Forge and taking it to the old dueling wing that had been left to disuse over the years as there had been no new dueling club formed in recent years. Once there and with the portable holo-generator up and working, Harry practiced with his mutant powers for a solid hour, from target practice, to force field management, to a few Danger Room simulations, provided he didn't do too much damage to the wing.

It seemed to keep his powers in check, and he wasn't flooding radiation or leaking all over the place anymore, plus during those hours he usually managed to refine his skill in using his powers, discovering every once in a while a new and interesting way to use them.

Meanwhile his magical classes had gotten more intensive in turn. Potions was as horrible as ever, but thanks to Harry now walking parallel to Snape, through the Gryffindor half of the class at least, there were never any accidents and everybody, Neville especially, completed their potions in time and with adequate results. Harry almost worried that, given the types of potions that Snape was giving them now, that he wouldn't have the time or attention to watch out for everyone else and complete his own potion, but he soon found the resolution to this.

Gather everybody else's ingredients and components for them first, help them individually and collectively in preparing them, make sure everybody is on the same page and at the same step at the same time, Hermione included, and sometimes there was a bit extra, often _just_ enough, for his own potion, which they then all added in together. When the potion required absolute attention on the way it was heated and stirred, that was when the partner concept came into play.

Harry almost always partnered with Ron, and while Harry was checking to make sure everybody else wasn't about to blow them all up, the redhead was paying double attention to their potion and making sure Harry wasn't stirring it wrong or that the temperature was too hot or too cool. It was a system that, while it had a few bugs to it, seemed to work and nobody was complaining about it. Except maybe Hermione, when she wanted to move ahead while everybody else caught up with her.

Nevertheless, the end result was that everyone, even Neville, were passing Potions with an A, and a few, Hermione, with an E. Snape didn't give out Os, not even to his favorite Slytherins, who's own quality in work could do with some extra attention of its own.

Transfiguration had moved on from the matchsticks and onto turning steel ball bearings into rubber balls. Herbology was still playing in the dirt, and Astronomy still stole time away from sleep. Charms, had just started on the levitation spell.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too. Never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

It was very difficult. Harry and Seamus, his partner for this class period, swished and flicked, but the feather they were supposed to be sending skyward just lay on the desktop. Seamus got so impatient that he prodded it with his wand and set fire to it. Harry had to put it out with a very quick and muffled use of his powers.

Ron, at the next table, wasn't having much more luck. He was also partnered with Hermione, which certainly didn't help improve his patience.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.

"You're saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione snap. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.

Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her robes, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

"Oh, well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. "Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!"

Ron was in a very bad mood by the end of the class. "It's no wonder no one can stand her," he said to Harry as they pushed their way into the crowded corridor, "She's a nightmare, honestly!"

Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Harry caught a glimpse of her face, and was startled to see that she was in tears.

"Ron... I think she heard you," he said, watching the witch disappear around a corner.

"So?" said Ron, but he looked a bit uncomfortable. "She must've noticed she's got no friends."

Harry would have gone after her, after slapping Ron upside the head, but he had to get to Study Hall, and given that he was still having a bit of trouble with the fine-tune control of his powers, he couldn't put it off. Hermione didn't turn up for the rest of the afternoon. On their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Harry and Ron overheard Parvati Patil telling her friend Lavender that Hermione was crying in the girls bathroom and wanted to be left alone. Ron looked still more awkward at this, but a moment later they had entered the Great Hall, where the Halloween decorations put Hermione out of their minds.

A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.

Harry was just helping himself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped

against the table, and gasped, "Troll! In the dungeons! Thought you ought to know."

He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.

Needless to say, there was quite an uproar from the student body at this information. It took several _loud_ purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence. "Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately! Professors, follow me to the dungeons!"

Percy was looking trapped all of a sudden, and if Harry had been looking, he would've seen similar expressions on the faces of his friend Ron and the twins Fred and George. Still, Percy was a Prefect, and he did his duty to the best of his ability. There was a mass exodus for the doors and the stairs, but thanks to the Prefects it was orderly instead of mass chaos.

Just outside of the Great Hall, as they were caught between the stairs and a group of Hufflepuffs, Harry froze in his steps, grabbing Ron urgently. All he said was, "Hermione!"

Ron's eyes went wide, and he started to argue, but the way Harry grabbed him roughly and looked at him, any protests he would've put forth died before leaving his mouth. "Oh all right, but Percy better not see us."

They slipped past the Hufflepuffs and down the stairs until they went down an empty corridor and from there hurried off for the girls bathroom. Just before they rounded the corner Ron recoiled and asked Harry, "Do you smell something?"

Harry sniffed and a foul stench reached his nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean. And then they heard it; a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Ron pointed, at the end of a passage to the left, something huge was moving toward them. They shrank into the shadows and watched as it emerged into a patch of moonlight.

It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, bony feet. The smell coming from it was unbelievable. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.

The troll stopped next to a doorway and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouched slowly into the room. Ron opened his mouth to say something but Harry's grip on his shoulder tightened suddenly, as the mutant wizard pointed to the sign next to the doorway. "Isn't that the girls bathroom?" he asked aloud.

They got their answer when a girl's loud scream rang out from inside.

"Bugger," both boys said together as they raced for the doorway, neither one thinking of much beyond their gut instincts. They rounded the door and entered the room, seeing the troll tower over a cowering Hermione, smashing the bathroom with its giant club.

"Find something to distract it with!" Harry yelled as he ran forward. He didn't even know what he was doing, his body was moving on its own, as it had when he'd saved Neville from falling, and Meggan from being hurt during training.

"Distract it?" Ron screeched. "With what?"

Hermione screamed again as the troll raised its club and gave a throaty roar, slamming it down where she'd been moments before. Looking down, she absently realized that she was floating in the air, and somebody's arms were around her, holding her up. After a bit more observation, she suddenly realized that it was Harry, and he was flying! Without a broom!

"This is impossible," she whispered.

"Tell that to big, ugly and smelly over there," Harry said to her. There wasn't a lot of room in the bathroom, but thankfully he didn't need all that much to stay hovering. He also had a forcefield up around them, and soon found that it was more than capable in holding off a mountain troll with a club as the creature pounded away on the glowing bubble protecting them.

Finally, Ron had an idea, or rather it was the only thing he could think of. Waving his wand with a quick swish and flick, he pronounced the words exactly, "Windgardium Leviosa!"

On the next upswing of it's club, the troll didn't even notice that said club was now floating a foot or two over its head until after it had tried to take another swing at Harry's forcefield, only to discover it had nothing to hit it with. Confused, it looked around, and then looked up to see it's club floating there right above it's face.

Ron shrugged and figured this should be enough of a distraction and he canceled the spell. Immediately the giant club dropped about two feet right into the troll's face, with just enough force to stun it. It started to bob and weave for a few moments, but Harry decided to add to the odds and after dropping the forcefield, he blasted it with a plasma beam straight to the face. The force and light of the attack was enough to knock the mountain troll off its feet and to the floor with a resounding and ground shaking thud.

"Is it... dead?" Hermione faintly asked.

"Nah, didn't use that much power. It's just knocked out," Harry assured her. He'd learned how to control how much power he put into his plasma and the various effects each level had from the simulations he'd completed in 'Study Hall' among other things.

The children all breathed a sigh of relief, Harry letting the last traces of his powers' visual remains fade away, just before there was a bang at the door to the bathroom. A minute later, the three Gryffindors were standing there, side by side, looking both guilty and exhausted as Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell crowded into the room around the troll's body.

Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart. Snape bent over the troll, inspecting it and determining if it was still a threat. Professor McGonagall, on the contrary, was looking at Ron and Harry. Harry'd never seen her look so angry. Her lips were pressed so tightly they were white. Hopes of winning fifty points for Gryffindor faded quickly from Harry's mind.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" shouted Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice. Harry looked at Ron, who was still standing with his wand in the air. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

Professor Snape stopped his inspection of the troll to turn a baleful eye towards Harry.

"Please, Professor McGonagall," Hermione squeaked, stepping forward. "They were looking for me."

"Miss Granger?" McGonagall questioned, a trace of surprise in her voice.

Hermione had managed to get to her feet at last, though she still looked as bad as Quirrell in some regards. "I went looking for the troll because I... I thought I could deal with it on my own," she told the Professor. "You know, because I've read all about them."

Ron nearly dropped his wand in amazement. Hermione Granger, telling a downright lie to a _teacher_?

"If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now. I'm so sorry. It was all my fault," Hermione looked down, like she was about to cry, and everyone could only look at her in growing awe. The two boys because of the girl's acting ability and willingness to lie on their behalf, and the Professors because while they knew Hermione was a bit of a know-it-all, they never considered she'd be arrogant enough to do something of this magnitude.

"Well, in that case..." said Professor McGonagall, staring at the three of them, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own? Five points, Miss Granger, will be taken from Gryffindor for this. I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."

Hermione, her head still hanging down, silently, yet quickly, left.

Professor McGonagall then turned to Harry and Ron. "Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many First Years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll and lived to tell the tale. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."

They hurried out of the chamber and didn't speak at all until they had climbed at least two floors up. It was a relief to be away from the smell of the troll, quite apart from anything else.

Before Ron could say anything, Harry gave him a look and remarked, "Still think Hermione is a nightmare that doesn't have any friends?"

Ron gave him a guilty face, but finally acquiesced, "All right, she didn't have to cover for us like that and she took the blame for it, something I never thought she'd do. And what's that about her not having friends?"

Harry gave him another look, until Ron switched from his guilty expression to a bright smile.

"She's got us after all, right mate?"

Harry matched his friend's grin and nodded. "Right!"

_Author's Note: I know, I know, I'm evil for leaving the cliffhanger from last chapter a cliffhanger. Not to worry, it's all part of the plan. Little hints and clues will be given throughout the story hinting at what it was that they all saw on Harry's Deep Scan, but it won't be fully revealed until the very last chapter before the epilogue. Provided I can ever get the story that far. :)_

_Please Read & Review!_


	6. Study Hall

_Hogwarts_

_The Next Day_

After getting back to Gryffindor tower, the two had resumed the feast, albeit after they'd found Hermione and made sure to sit on either side of her. None of them said a word, but they didn't need to either. They understood something that very few could, and so began the most dynamic relationship at Hogwarts since the Founders themselves had lived.

Thankfully, after the events of the previous night, the students were given the day off from classes and were advised to enjoy the waning warm and pleasant days while they could. Unfortunately, Harry didn't have the luxury of taking a day off from some parts of his schedule.

"Where ya going mate?" Ron asked as he and Hermione watched him pick up a metallic black cube and head for the portrait hole entrance like he was going somewhere.

"Huh? Uh, nowhere important, Ron. Just, uh... the library to do some homework," he stuttered.

"Oh, excellent then," Hermione got up, picking up an arm load of books, "We'll go with you. We both need to work on our homework too, right Ron?"

The redhead smiled, even though saying homework around him was like waving garlic at a vampire, and said, "Sure thing. After all, it's not like ya got... homework that we don't, seeing as we're in the same classes."

Harry cursed under his breath and turned back around to face them. "Actually, I've still got to go to study hall, and Professor Dumbledore told me, when he set the class up for me, that he's the only one that can exempt me from it, and despite all of us having the day off, I didn't get a specific exemption, so I still gotta go."

"Well, why don't we walk you to class then," Hermione helpfully suggested.

"You don't need to..." Harry protested.

"Sure we do," Ron insisted, taking Harry by the shoulders on his right side while Hermione took his arm on the left side, "It's what friends do for each other. And ya never know when another troll could sneak in."

"How did a troll sneak into the school in the first place anyway?" Hermione questioned as they left the Gryffindor common room.

"I think Peeves did it as a prank," Ron offered.

"But..." Hermione started to argue, then caught herself. "What I mean is, how did a troll get from the mountains all the way past the wards and the Forbidden Forest to get close enough for Peeves to let him in though? It just doesn't make any sense."

"What if it wasn't Peeves?" Harry asked, resigning himself to his fate of being dragged around by his friends. He was still debating and trying desperately to think of some way out of this particular predicament.

"Well, who else could've done it?" Ron argued.

"One of the older students?" Harry offered.

"Where's the motivation?" Hermione countered.

"Prank?" Ron suggested, but she just shook her head no. "Did it get lost and wander in on its own?"

"No," Hermione told them. "Mountain trolls, while a bit... dimwitted, have a good enough memory to recognize its own territory, usually the cave it lives in and familiar hunting grounds. Unless it was lured away from that territory, there's no logical reason for it to have been anywhere near the castle."

"And the students aren't allowed off grounds without special permission," Harry put the final nail in that idea's coffin. "So who's left? Who else would be able to lure a mountain troll into the castle, have the opportunity, and above all else, would _want_ to do that, and why?"

"One of the teachers?" Ron joked, laughing a second later as he thought of how absurd that idea was.

Harry wasn't laughing though, as they continued to walk towards the dueling wing. When Hermione and Ron noticed that he wasn't laughing along with them, their own slowly petered out until they started to think of _why_ he wasn't laughing with them.

"Oh c'mon mate! I was joking!" said Ron.

"Harry, you couldn't honestly think that a Professor would intentionally endanger their students like that? Can you?" Hermione screeched.

"The troll appeared in the dungeons first, right?" he said. "Not the Great Hall, not the Main Hall, not even one of the outside courtyards, the dungeon was where it was first spotted."

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, outraged.

"C'mon mate, I'll admit he's a bit dodgy and he seems to have it in for you, but _Snape_? Come off it!" Ron was disbelieving.

"No, not Professor Snape. He had two double potions lessons that day, plus we saw him at the head table with everyone else since before the Halloween feast even began. No opportunity," Harry reasoned.

"No other professor has classes in the dungeons," Hermione pointed out.

"There are secret passages all over this school," he argued. "Wouldn't it stand to reason that there might be one or two that lead to outside the grounds, or even up into the mountains? Using something like that, somebody would probably need only an hour or two to go through it, lure in a troll, and then hurry back ahead of it. And Professor Quirrell was the only one that wasn't there the hour before the feast, and he was the one that came screaming in, warning us about the troll."

"Professor _Quirrell_?" they both screamed.

"That does it, you are off your rocker mate. Professor Quirrell couldn't hurt a mosquito sucking his blood. He'd sooner faint or run off screaming. Quirrell luring a mountain troll into the school? HAH! Fred and George should tell jokes half that funny!" Ron laughed.

"But Harry, why would he..." Hermione tried to reason logic.

Harry just shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. But unless he's got some kind of alibi..."

"Well, not much we can do about it either way, I mean other than continue to keep the school safe from any more trolls," Ron preened himself a little.

"Careful, keep that up, and you're head will get too big to fit through doorways," Hermione teased him.

"Speaking of which, here's my stop, thanks for the escort, I'll see you guys later," Harry hurried through the door to the abandoned dueling hall and slammed it shut behind him before they could react. With a sigh of relief, he stepped away and brought out the holo-generator and began to set it up.

"Not so fast, Harry!" Hermione's voice rang out with a shot as the two eleven-year-olds slammed the door open. "You have some explaining to do, and we're not leaving until we get some answers!"

"Crap," Harry said to himself, turning around to face the other two Gryffindors.

Thankfully, Ron closed and locked the door behind them so at least nobody else would come see what was going on, but they were still there and waiting for his explanation. Not sure what to do or say, he just stood there, blocking their view of the holo-generator, and wondering how he could get out of this without damaging their friendship.

"What can I say?" he shrugged.

"You can start by telling us the truth. How did you do that to the troll? How did you stop that hellhound? How did you save Neville? How did you save _me_ by flying without a broom or spell?" Hermione demanded.

"Accidental magic?" he shrugged again, the excuse sounding pathetic even to him.

"How about the truth this time?" Ron growled.

"I... I-I don't know what you're talking about," he stepped back from them, fear rising in his throat. He didn't want to lie to them, but he couldn't stand losing their friendship either way, and he was convinced that if they knew he was a mutant, they would hate him. Just like the rest of the world hates mutants, with very few exceptions.

"Just tell us Harry, tell us the truth," Hermione pleaded with him.

"I... I... I..." he couldn't speak. His brain was deadlocked on the decision. He didn't know what to do.

"You're going to make us say it instead, are you?" Ron took the decision out of his hands. "Admit the truth, Harry. Tell us the truth. Tell us that you're a mutant."

The silence that filled the empty hall was the same as a graveyard at midnight, the silence of death. Until a soft, quiet voice whispered into it, "What...?"

"We know you're a mutant, Harry," said Hermione. "I imagine the both of us overheard you that day you went to Professor McGonagall. Though I had my suspicions beforehand."

"You... you know?" Harry's voice was weak and he looked half about to keel over.

"Yeah," Ron nodded, then grinned. "I was just waiting for you to admit it. After last night, I realized Hermione was waiting for the same thing. Now if I can get over her bossy, school-obsessed attitude..."

"And if I can get over his brainless, rude comments and foul-mouthed temper," Hermione added.

"Hey!" Ron shouted.

"Then we figured that we can both deal with you not telling us about your powers," she finished up with a teasing grin at both boys.

"How..." Harry's voice croaked a bit, "How long have you known?"

Ron shrugged. "Since you ran off like the hounds of hell were on your arse out of class one day and went straight to Professor McGonagall. I saw the brainiac following after you, so I followed her, and we both heard your confession to our Head of House. I followed you into the Headmaster's office and heard you went to some place called Muir Island via Portkey."

"How _did_ you get past me and into the office anyway?" Hermione wanted to know.

Ron just shrugged and grinned at her, saying, "Guy's gotta have some secrets."

Harry finally succumbed to his shock and collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily, mostly sighs of relief, as he felt a weight he hadn't been aware of lift from his heart leaving him almost giddy. He started to laugh, and just kept on until he ultimately accepted that his two friends were truly his friends for life, and they accepted him as he was, mutant, wizard, and all. He'd never felt so wonderful in all his life.

"You... you really don't care, that I'm... that I'm a..." he couldn't finish the sentence.

"Of course not," Hermione scoffed. "How could you be so silly that we'd let simple prejudices like that get in the way of true friendship? Besides, I have an uncle on my mother's side who just so happens to be a mutant. And he's the gentlest, sweetest, kindest soul I've ever met, so you certainly couldn't be so bad. Especially... especially after you paid so much attention to me and actually became my friend."

"Yeah, well, emotional rubbish aside, the fact that you're famous certainly doesn't hurt," Ron joked, but quickly became serious, "You're the best mate a bloke could ask for and then some. So you're a mutant, so what? My family is hardly one to foster any kind of bigotry, seeing as my dad is muggle obsessed and he doesn't stand for any kind of shite from anyone."

"Hey," Harry chuckled, sitting back on the floor now, "that's the first time I've ever heard you talk about your family beyond a casual mention. Tell us a bit more about them."

"Aw, there's not much to tell," Ron grew uncomfortable, turning his head and scratching the back of his neck. "Besides, it's cooler hearing about the Boy Who Lived being a mutant too!"

"Ron, I was locked in a cupboard under the stairs and worked like a slave from the day I could walk by a man married to my mother's sister, who belittled and insulted me every day of my life that he wasn't yelling at me to stop me from being 'freaky'. He knew about my magic, but not that I was a mutant, though I imagine that would just be one more thing he'd condemn me for either way. When I got my Hogwarts letter, he tore it up in front of my eyes and that's when my mutant powers manifested and I blew up the house. Now that you've had your excitement, how about telling me what a _real_ family is supposed to be like."

They stared at him, unable to believe their ears, or what he'd just told them. It couldn't be true... could it? After all, this was the _Boy Who Lived_! He was the savior of the entire Wizarding World from the Dark Lord Voldemort! Every witch and wizard in England and across most of Europe owed him their _lives_! He was supposed to be the most popular, most loved, and best raised wizard on the entire _planet_! And here he was saying that instead he'd been treated like a slave and told he was a freak for his entire life _by his_ _blood relatives_!

"That... that can't be true," Hermione stuttered, still staring at her friend, unable to make sense of it. "Harry... you, you're the Boy Who Lived! You... you're the most famous wizard in the world! You... are you having us on? Is that it? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?"

Startled by her sudden vehemence, Harry blinked and answered, "No. Besides, the Dursley's aren't a subject for jokes. Well... maybe fat jokes, but I usually got punished for making fat jokes. They never hit me or anything, except for a few swats to the back of my head if I wasn't watching. Punishment was usually cleaning Dudley's room." He shivered in revulsion as he remembered a few of the things he'd found while cleaning his cousin's room one time. He never did find out what it was that had been moving back and forth under the bed.

"C'mon mate, that... that just can't be true," Ron started off smiling, but it faded as he saw the seriousness in Harry's expression.

Still confused by their refusal to believe him, Harry asked them, "Why is it you two keep saying that? I mean, yeah, this past summer was great, spending it on Muir Island with Wanda as she prepared me for school, but they at least believed me when I told them about how the Dursley's treated me growing up. And I'm not lying, or making this up. What's with you two?"

"But, Harry!" Hermione looked to be on the verge of tears. "You were supposed to be raised a hero! You saved the world by stopping You-Know-Who, even if you didn't really _do_ anything, you should have had the perfect childhood, been the envy of everyone here!"

"And you're sitting there telling us," Ron added, "that your own family, instead of giving you everything, left you with nothing and treated you like a house elf? Your own _family_?"

Harry just shrugged, unable to understand their refusal to believe him.

"I saw the whole 'perfect family' deal on TV once. American import, called _Full House_, and it looked nice. But that's just fiction. Besides, my parents, I was told, died in a car crash. Wasn't until Wanda and the others rescued me after my powers manifested that I learned what really happened. My Aunt and... Vernon always told me I was lucky they kept me around, and how good they were for taking a freeloader like me in. Seriously, what's with you two? I know not every family is like that, but the Dursley's were what I got stuck with. Besides, Dudley, my fat arse cousin is the one that got all the toys and everything he ever wanted. Turned into a right bully, ya ask me. I'm grateful enough that I never turned into that."

"This... this just doesn't make any sense," Hermione fell to her knees beside Harry, looking lost and confused.

"So, you think that just because they weren't your parents, that's the reason you got treated like that?" Ron asked, trying to make sense on his own. Harry just shrugged and said, "I try not to think of what it's like in the mind of a Dursley. Look, guys, it's OK. I'm never going back there, I'm free from those... _homo sapiens_ now, so I've got nothing to worry about. I'm just glad you're OK with knowing I'm a mutant."

"Oh Harry," Hermione whispered, tears in her eyes as she reached out and enveloped him in a hug.

His face set into a steel-like resolve, Ron turned on his heel, saying over his shoulder, "I'll be back in a bit. I need to speak with someone." Harry and Hermione looked at each other, then shrugged.

_Gryffindor Common Room_

Ron burst into the Common Room, barely even waiting for the portrait hole to open all the way before he practically exploded into the room, startling everyone currently there. He looked around, a wild, dangerous look in his eyes that kept people away for the moment. Finally, he locked onto the person he was looking for.

Running up to his older brother Percy, Ron grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him up the stairs to his empty dorm room.

"Ow! Ronald! What is the meaning of this?" the prefect demanded to know.

"I need to talk to Dad. Now! It's urgent!" Ron told him, yelling when it looked like Percy would argue.

"What do you expect me to do about it? Go buy some Floo powder! The fireplace is free, in case you didn't notice!" Percy told him.

"It's private, but still urgent. Now I need to talk to Dad, so hand me your mirror!" he demanded.

"What? No! And you aren't supposed to mention that kind of thing here!" Percy hissed at him.

Ron scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Believe me, I've got a hard enough time as it is keeping from accidentally letting anything slip to my two best friends! Why do you think I dragged you up here instead of asking downstairs? Prat."

Percy frowned, glaring at his little brother in annoyance. "That's not exactly the way to get me to do what you want," he pointed out.

"So what? We're both Gryffindors, not Slytherins. Now my options were limited to either you, Professor Dumbledore, who's not 'supposed' to know, or... the Twins," Ron explained.

Shuddering, Percy quickly handed over a pocket mirror. It wasn't commonly used, apparently some muggle movie producers had found a charmed communication mirror once and it very nearly revealed magic to the whole world. Still, the boys father just couldn't help tinkering, and so long as the mirrors never left their persons, the mirrors were a convenient and private means of communication for the "Family" in times of emergency. Holding up the mirror, Ron looked directly into it and said, "Dad!"

A moment later, Ron's reflection was replaced by that of his father's, Arthur Weasley. "Ron? What are you doing with Percy's mirror? Has something happened?"

"Yeah, sort of," Ron sighed, sitting down and gesturing for Percy to do the same. "Sorry I haven't written yet, but Hogwarts is busier than I thought it would be."

Arthur chuckled. "It often is for First Years, son. Now, what's this emergency?"

"Well..." Ron hesitated, then took a deep breath and went ahead, "I've made friends with Harry Potter, and another student. Her name is Hermione Granger. Downright know-it-all if you ask me, but she's still pretty smart. Anyway, me and her found out Harry has a few secrets and we just cornered him about them, like a few minutes ago. Then I casually mention how we don't discriminate against people with secrets, and because I kind of have to be tight-lipped about... you know, the family, I try not to say much to keep from saying too much. Harry made a comment on that, and I said back to him that it's more exciting learning about the Boy Who Lived than talking about my family. That's when he told us."

"Told you what?" Percy asked.

Looking up at his brother, then back to his father, he answered, "How he's been raised by his blood relatives, blokes called the Dursley's, and since before he could walk, he was kept in the cupboard under the stairs, how they worked him to the bone, near-starved him, and while he says they didn't abuse him, they knocked him around a bit and basically treated him like a slave."

"WHAT?" both Percy and Arthur screamed, nearly cracking the enchanted glass.

"That's what I said! Hermione was surprised too," Ron told them. "She even said it, Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived, the hero that saved the Magical World from the Dark Lord. He was supposed to be raised like a prince, given everything and wanting for nothing. I saw the look in his eyes when he said it, Dad. He wasn't lying. Harry Potter has never been treated like a hero. He's been raised like a slave his entire life."

Arthur Weasley very rarely got truly angry. He might get annoyed, he might raise his voice in righteous anger, and he sometimes indulged in petty rivalries with the Malfoys. Still, when he did get angry... even his family knew to get out of his way, and his enemies trembled in dread.

"Tell me everything, son," he ordered.

_Headmaster's Office_

Professor Dumbledore looked up when he heard the gargoyle guarding the entrance to his office move aside to admit someone with the proper password. He was surprised when he saw that it was Hogwarts Alumni Arthur Weasley who entered his office, though he did not allow it to show.

"Mr. Weasley, is there something I can do for you?" he asked, smiling despite the rude entrance.

"Did you know?" the balding redhead demanded.

Arching one silver-lined eyebrow at the question, he refrained from using any of his own skills and simply asked, "Know what, Mr. Weasley?"

"About Harry's family," said Arthur. No longer asking, but stating.

Paling slightly, and looking as though he'd just swallowed the entire bowl full of lemon drops on his desk, the Headmaster sat back in his chair and gestured for his former student to take a seat. Arthur ignored the gesture and simply crossed his arms, waiting for an answer.

"I've known about the Dursley's treatment of Harry ever since this summer. Before then... all I knew is that he and his aunt and cousin were safe behind the wards that protected him from detection and harm by those that use the Dark Arts. And I do not believe I need to remind you, of all people, Mr. _Weasley_ that while there is no longer an active war, there are still conflicts in this world that keep one such as myself from keeping up with constant monitoring or spying on a young boy growing up with his Aunt and Uncle."

"Did you ever check? You're the one that put him with that Aunt of his! Did you ever check to make sure he was all right?" the Weasley Patriarch shouted.

"While normally it is rather rude for a minor to be monitored in such a manner, and even more so to insinuate that it needs to be done by others, I believe, given the subject of our conversation, I will let that slide, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore warned him. "And allow me the courtesy of answering your question with a question of my own. Have you ever gotten so wrapped up in the big picture that the small things, the things you used to think were all that mattered, blurred into the background? Maybe you had to go to work and you forgot to play Quidditch with your sons on a promise you made a month or more ago? Perhaps you even promised to repair a doll for your daughter, but other projects, work, everyday life just compounded it all together so that there are no spare minutes where you can even afford to remember the doll in the first place?"

"I realize, Mr. Weasley, that we are not talking about a game or a doll, but a human being. Nevertheless, I have to deal with matters that affect almost _all of humanity_, and I cannot afford to coddle and spy on a single individual and his family. And as much as it pains me, I almost wish I could, as if I had, there might have been something I could have done. As such, I am taking steps to... rectify certain mistakes on my part. Does that answer your question, Mr. Weasley?"

"How many people know how Harry grew up?" he asked, now much calmer.

"Aside from myself and those he spent his summer with? In addition to your son, who I assume to be the one who informed you, perhaps one or two others. Most surprisingly, instead of heaping the attention onto himself or demanding tribute after discovering he is appreciated here far more than with his relatives, Mr. Potter has chosen to take it upon himself to ensure the safety and security of his fellow students. Most remarkable, wouldn't you say?"

"That's not remarkable, Dumbledore," Arthur screamed, losing his temper in the face of calm. "It's a bloody MIRACLE, that's what it is! That boy... if half the things Ron told me are true... And he just shrugs it off and starts to actively protect and look after his fellow students, you say? Unbelievable!"

"Yes, isn't it?" Dumbledore acknowledged with a sad sigh. "I wanted Harry to have a simple life. Grow up a normal child. And in my attempts to ensure he lived to have that life... I all but condemned him to hell."

"Yes, you did," Arthur growled at the Headmaster. "But it's not up to me, or anyone else to condemn you for past mistakes. That's up to Harry, and it would seem he's all but forgiven you for it. But mark my words, Headmaster. If you ever show signs of repeating any of these... _mistakes_..." The wizard briefly shifted his expression to a facial mask that few ever saw and lived for much longer after. "I will hold you personally accountable for them. No matter what I may have to... _invent_ to get the job done. I trust that you understand me. Terribly sorry for interrupting your busy schedule, Headmaster. I'll be leaving now."

"Quite all right Mr. Weasley. My door is always open to those that need me," Dumbledore assured him.

After he was gone, the silver-maned Headmaster of Hogwarts started popping the lemon drops like they were going out of stock. That man could be downright terrifying when he got angry. And he was _nothing_ compared to that wife of his! Oh Merlin... what about when Molly finds out?

_Training Hall_

"So... where do you think he had to run off to all of a sudden like that?" Harry asked as they both stared at the closed door, which Ron had left through not a minute before.

Hermione shrugged, for once unable to answer due to lack of knowledge. "I'm not sure. I would assume one of his brothers, Percy perhaps, but I don't think they get along that well for some reason."

Harry chuckled, and finally had enough presence of mind to get back to his feet and then to help Hermione to hers. "Well, since you're here, and you already know about me and my powers, I might as well go ahead and show you what 'Study Hall' is all about for me here. Here we go!"

He turned back to the holo-generator and activated it onto the targeting simulation. Immediately, a large circular target appeared directly above the grayish-black box. Hermione squeaked in surprise and asked, "What is that? What did you do?"

"It's my birthday present. It creates realistic illusions, of just about anything really, so I can train with my powers, learn how to use and control them, even get a decent work out without having to run around the lake or into the forest or stuff like that. One of the guys that built it called it the Holographic Illusion Generation Device. Holo-generator for short," Harry explained.

"So... what do you do?" she asked.

Harry waved for her to stand back, then further back, then he sighed and physically moved her to the wall right next to the door. "Minimum safety distance," he explained before going back to where he'd started at.

Once he was ready, he took a few deep breaths and even jogged in place for a minute before calling out in a commanding voice, "Warm-up exercises. Targeting simulation 1 Alpha. Time limit... one minute."

Right underneath the target a holographic number 3 appeared, then counted down to 0 in short order. The moment before the holographic number disappeared, Harry was already moving, having ignited his plasma aura, and fired an arrow-bolt at the first target and shortly was shooting out the next target that popped up.

Unlike his first experiences with targeting simulations in the Danger Room, this exercise only created one target at a time, but always in a different location, and always the same size. The catch was that you had to hit all of the targets in the chosen time limit. In simulation 1 Alpha, there were one hundred targets, and the first time he tried it, Harry needed ten whole minutes to get them all. He'd worked with Brian and the other members of Excalibur during the summer, and since his visit to Muir Island, on shortening that time while working on other additional simulations as well, some timed, some not. Ultimately, he reached his current level of completing one hundred targets within sixty seconds.

He still wasn't confident enough to shorten it any more than that, and he'd gotten to where he could almost predict where the next target would appear, despite the random setting the simulation used. But it kept his reflexes sharp, and it was a good way to warm up before moving on to one of the more difficult exercises.

A minute later, Hermione was staring in open-mouthed amazement. She had just witnessed something she'd only ever heard about second-hand before, and it was performed, near-flawlessly, by a child her own age, perhaps a few months younger. Harry's power effects made him look like some kind of anime superhero almost, especially when the plasma flame was around him and he was shooting out plasma bolts with a look of extreme concentration on his face.

"Harry," she whispered, after he'd finished, "That... that was amazing! I've never seen anything like it!"

"Not... finished... yet..." he gasped, a bit out of breath.

Once he'd regained control of his breathing, he stood straight and commanded the holo-generator, "Begin Targeting Simulation 1 Omega. Save settings upon completion." Immediately a new target appeared, but the moment Harry hit it, two more appeared, both in different locations, but he still managed to hit them both at the same time. Then four targets appeared.

It was the same simulation that Harry had faced the day he met Brian and Meggan and the same simulation that had forced him to blow up the Danger Room on Muir Island too. The major difference was the safety settings and a time limit combined with accuracy meter. With the Danger Room simulation and Brian, he'd been challenged to meet the goal of hitting all the targets simultaneously but he didn't _have_ to. In order to pass this exercise at all, he did have to, and it wouldn't let him move on until he'd done it. If he either failed to hit the targets at the same time, or if he went over the time limit, then instead of ending the simulation and telling him he failed, it just started back over at a single target and wouldn't let him quit until he'd hit 1024.

For safety reasons, they wouldn't let him go over that, as the radiation given off by his efforts to hit them all simultaneously was enough to permanently damage the holo-generator as well as his surroundings, and it was doubtful that Harry would ever really _need_ to hit more than one thousand targets with his powers at the exact same time anyway.

And while he was both lucky and determined the first time, continued experience with this particular exercise showed him that he was not a master of it by far, as each time he used it the number of times he had to start over varied greatly. Some days he was at the top of his game and repeated the flawless performance of that first time, and some times he was stuck on this one simulation for the whole day doing it over and over as many times as it took.

This particular day seemed to fall in between, as Harry was just finishing up and blasted the last of the targets simultaneously after the fifth time through, just as Ron rejoined them, looking just as flushed as Harry was, though clearly his was from emotional turmoil and he wasn't sweating like a racehorse either.

"Hey, what'd I miss?" he asked Hermione, who was still staring open-mouthed next to the door.

She could only vaguely shake her head back and forth, until finally she gathered enough of her senses to speak. "I... I... You wouldn't believe me even if I told you," she said. "Harry's been training, or rather exercising his mutant powers ever since you've been gone. He's only just finished up his second exercise, but... he's amazing. I mean, it's amazing! What he can do, I mean!"

"Right," Ron said, taking a quick step away from the clearly disturbed girl.

"Hey mate," he turned and walked towards Harry, who was standing there breathing heavily and sweating like a pig. "Sorry about running out like that earlier. I... had to check something with someone. So what's this training Hermione tells me about? Looks like a real killer."

Harry suddenly chuckled. "Ron, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. Targeting simulation 2 Alpha. Run program to completion, including levels Beta, Delta, Gamma, Epsilon, Lambda, Sigma, Theta, Zeta, and Omega. You might want to step back to where Hermione is Ron."

"Oooookay..." Ron was confused, but did as advised, and just in time too as a holographic probe appeared and began to fly in concentric circles around Harry, shooting out beams of light at him.

Harry reacted immediately and dodged all the holo-bolts, harmless bits of light at Alpha level, but as the levels increased, so did the difficulty, and so did the power of those bolts until they were the equivalent of a taser. Dodging helped, but the longer he waited, the more the probe would adapt, he'd learned that the hard way, so once Ron was to the minimum safe distance, Harry wasted no time in blasting the holo-probe to pixels with a plasma bolt. Which, of course, began Beta level.

"Wicked," Ron commented.

Hermione held him back though, saying, "It's not over yet. He told me that there were ten levels to each simulation. Judging by his first couple of exercises, every time he manages to blow up the target, he moves on to the next level. That probe though... before it was just targets, so I think in this exercise, the targets shoot back. Best not to distract him right now."

"Right," said Ron with a nod of agreement.

At that moment, a new holo-probe appeared, though this one was a bit bigger and seemed more advanced in a way. It was, as it immediately demonstrated a much faster speed and the ability to dodge in unexpected ways, where the first level had just gone in circles around Harry.

Knowing he couldn't waste time with each level, as the probes seemed to learn as much from him as he did by observing their patterns Harry shot an even faster plasma bolt at the holo-probe, exploding it into pixels less than ten seconds after it formed in the first place. Before he could get any time to breathe, the third level activated, and this probe was even more advanced than the first two, and was far more sleeker in design.

Still, Harry hit it right off the bat without any problems, but level four is where things always got hard for him. This holo-probe looked more like some kind of smart-missile and acted like it too, as every time Harry shot at it, it immediately dodged and held back from firing at him. Finally, after Harry kept it as far back as it would go by flinging continuous plasma bolts at it, the probe finally started to fire back, forcing Harry to dodge a little himself and to lighten up on the fire that was keeping it at bay.

After a solid minute of dancing around each other, Harry finally winged the holo-probe enough with a barrage of twist-bolts that he was finally able to keep it still long enough to get a solid shot on it, though it took more work than he would've preferred.

Level five was a change in tactics for the simulation, as instead of fast moving small objects, he now had to face a larger, mostly stationary target that was heavily shielded, but still shot out those beams of light. Harry immediately formed a plasma forcefield around himself to protect against the taser beams and concentrated on creating a powerful enough plasma bolt that would take down the shielded weapons platform. It took him three shots, but it finally exploded into pixels and he moved on to level six.

This time the weapons platform was even more heavily shielded, but at the same time it moved on tank tracks in a circular motion and the taser beams were getting more powerful. Harry had to move, keep his forcefield up, keep it moving with him, and at the same time build up a powerful enough series of plasma bolts to hit a moving target, all while making sure he didn't accidentally hurt or fire a bolt at his friends who were watching him from next to the door. The big delay that kept him from ending this one quickly was building up the power for the bolts and maintaining control, as even a momentary distraction almost had him starting over on forming them.

Level seven was more comprehensive than difficult, as it took the previous weapons platform and took it from tank treads to robotic crab legs and the taser beams were even more powerful, but still as nothing against his plasma forcefield. This particular one was rather easy as all Harry had to do was send a fast moving plasma ball to direct underneath where the holo-platform was or was going to be, then detonate it from the under protected belly. But fear of the next level almost had Harry dragging it out as he knew what was coming next.

Instead of flying probes or well shielded weapons platforms, an exo-skeletal holographic android appeared and shot the taser beams from arm-mounted projectors. It was steel colored and had a simple red visor for seeing, but it moved fast and it either had to take a direct hit, or sustain enough damage for it to finally disappear. Harry didn't hesitate and shot it long distance with a steady plasma beam and a constant stream of twist-bolts to distract it enough for the beam to hit it. It was gone within thirty seconds, and then it was on to level nine.

For whatever reason, the next target did not immediately appear, giving Harry enough time to catch his breath, not to mention take a few gulping gasps as he knew what was coming up. Finally, the next android appeared, this one more filled out and heavily armored, and with two optic sensors instead of the primitive visor, and with taser cannons on both arms this time.

Knowing that it had learned from all of his tactics that he'd displayed so far, Harry changed up his strategy and formed a new forcefield around his body and pulled the same trick he had against Pete Wisdom and flew straight at the android with a plasma charged fist and hit it before it even knew what he was doing. He needed to save his strength for what was to come, and he wasn't stupid enough to waste it on the preliminaries. He'd made it to Omega level in record time.

One by one, the probes, platforms, and exo-skeletons began to reappear, all converging on him and firing a constant barrage of taser blasts. Unfortunately, if he took out the easy ones, they would reappear after ten seconds if the other targets hadn't been taken out before then, giving him an unending supply of targets, but he didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon on just this one exercise, so he targeted the fast-probes, the heavy shielded platforms, and the androids first.

After wasting each of them at least once, and getting their timing down, Harry grinned as he felt it was time to try out a new tactic he'd been working on. Taking a central position, he concentrated on forming the most powerful forcefield he could possibly create, and then he began to tag each and every one of the targets, mentally analyzing the ways they'd dodge and where to and how to anticipate it, even as they continued to pound against his forcefield with taser blasts. They still were unable to penetrate his defense, and it would take a lot more than a taser blast of any kind to make a dent in what he had around him now.

Finally, he had it, and with a shout of effort, he threw out the attack he mentally dubbed his Omega Beam Rush, where he sent out mentally controlled plasma beams to specific targets, and even tracked those targets around objects and other things to hit and destroy them. A massive explosion of pixels later, the simulation was complete, and Harry lowered his forcefield, breathing even heavier than before.

"Now you see why I need to train like this every day," he told his friends, while casually destroying the one probe that he'd missed, wiping it out just before the ten second time limit would've been up. "It's hard enough controlling my powers so they do what I want them to, but to keep it up under duress is the real challenge. I'm still not up for a full battle simulation just yet, but I'm getting there. All this was just target practice, as you can see."

"Bloody hell," said Ron, his mouth hanging open as Hermione's had been when he'd gotten back.

"Can... I mean, are you only allowed to do target simulations right now?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged, but answered, "Target practice is what I work on the most, but I have a couple of other simulations that I have to work on from time to time. Such as; Workout Program... Whizkid." Harry winced a bit at that last word, but Brian had insisted and nothing he did changed the man's mind. And unfortunately, he had no clue how to reprogram the holo-generator on his own, so he was stuck with it.

Immediately, the entire dueling hall where they'd been standing shimmered and blurred for only a moment before they stood in a full gymnasium of the same basic layout. Thankfully the dueling hall itself had been cleared of all furniture and other things, so it was basically just stone walls, stone floor, and stone ceiling. The holographic gym on the other hand, was filled with equipment, all generated by technological forcefields to simulate the barbells, running track, and everything else present.

"If you want, you guys can sit over there on the benches," Harry told them, while he was prompted by glowing letters that he needed to start jogging. "I'm going to be pretty busy here for the next half-hour, which is usually about how long this takes."

"Well that sounds boring," Ron muttered as they watched him start to run around the room. "Can't this thing of his do anything else?"

"I would imagine so, but you heard what Harry said, and you saw what he did. Before he starts playing around with this, he needs to use it for what it was made, which is to help him train to control his powers," Hermione said.

"Well... can't let him have all the fun, now can we?" Ron smirked, then took off his robes so he was wearing just his uniform pants and shirt and shoes. Then he started to jog after Harry, joining his roommate with a smile and a shrug. Harry just laughed and shrugged back.

"Boys," Hermione huffed, while she walked over to the device itself and sought after some kind of menu control, so she could at least see what all was available for it to do. She also wanted to see about gathering evidence for a theory she had suspicions on, but wasn't sure about.

_Please Read & Review!_


	7. Through The Trap Door Redone

_November 15_

_Gryffindor Common Room_

_(Roughly fifteen minutes after the end of the Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch game)_

"What do you mean you saw Professor Snape casting some kind of curse on me?" Harry asked, confused by his friends accusations. "I didn't see anything and neither did the rest of the packed stadium."

"Remember when your broom kept trying to throw you off?" Hermione said.

"Yeah?"

"Well, Ron, Hagrid and I saw that Snape was keeping eye contact with you at all times. He didn't take his eyes off of you for a second, and I could hear him mumbling something when I set his robes on fire to distract him. I don't know _what_ he was doing, but he was doing _something_!" she insisted.

"OK, OK, OK," he waved her off. "I'm sorry for doubting you. But the whole thing was just a fluke, I tell you. Hard crosswinds."

"None of the other players seemed to have any trouble with that," Ron pointed out.

"Probably because they're all twice my size, more experienced, and weren't flying any higher than the hoops, whereas I was above the entire stadium, trying to find the Snitch," Harry countered.

The past half month since Halloween, and when Harry discovered that his friends knew he was a mutant, had been intense, but thankfully nothing too drastic or untoward had happened. Classes continued to increase the workload on the First Years, and Harry maintained his 'Study Hall' time, developing new tricks here and there and working out daily to keep in top form. After the first couple of days, Ron usually joined him for jogging and weight lifting, but then Hermione decided to join in as well, changing into light work out clothes while Harry practiced with his powers, and then joining the boys in whatever exercises they went through.

In addition to that, Harry had Quidditch practice with Wood and the others on the Lions Quidditch team, which was usually about an hour and a half, depending on how stressed out Wood got. For Harry, a large part of that was just in getting used to his broom and practicing various flying maneuvers.

Outside of all that, Harry, Hermione and Ron spent almost all of their time together. Harry told them of what he could do with his powers and other stories and explanations for Ron about everyday common muggle technology and knowledge. Hermione helped them with their homework and asked lots of questions of the other two. Ron was actually the mysterious one for once, as he rarely liked to speak of his family, only naming them and his relation to them.

Seeing that they wouldn't get much out of their friend on that particular subject, they turned to something neither of them were familiar with at all, the world of magic and wizards and witches and how everything worked. Ron was very eager to impart any knowledge he hadn't deemed private, and basked in the attention. When he revealed that the Magical Community actually had it's own superheroes, he almost clammed up again, but during that particular conversation, Dean Thomas had overheard and started commenting over the muggle superheroes known as the Avengers.

Thus the start of the now infamous 'Superhero Debate' that would continue the moment a person even casually mentioned either a specific superhero or a super group, such as the Avengers or the Wizard Wonders, no matter what age, what house, or what status one had. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, student, teacher, professor, Filch, Hagrid, ghost, poltergeist, or painting. If you weren't careful, the wrong word could start a shouting match or a pleasant and engaging conversation that would last all through the night.

The fun ones, the three friends decided, were whenever somebody started to theorize who would win if one hero was matched up against another in a fight. For example; Hermes versus the Twin Devils, both of the Wizard Wonders. For some odd reason, Perfect Prefect Percy and twin troublemaker tyrants Fred and George often became quite heated over that particular match-up.

All of that was just the day to day matters, and it made life pleasant and challenging at Hogwarts. Then came the first Quidditch match of the season, the Gryffindor Lions against the Slytherin Snakes. Harry was excited and had butterflies in his stomach over his first game right up until he was back in the air on his broom. Then it was cake.

At least until about three quarters of the way through the game, right when Gryffindor was leading, his broom started to give him a bit of trouble. At first it wasn't anything, but soon it was bucking in his grip and he was having a bit of trouble staying on it. He managed to though, thanks largely to his daily workouts and exercise that Brian had insisted be part of his Study Hall, and finally it stopped and he was good to go. Just in time too as he finally spotted the Snitch and dove for it at top speed. Unfortunately he underestimated his 'top speed' and nearly drove himself into the ground trying to outrace the Slytherin Seeker and instead of catching the golden, silver-winged ball in the traditional manner, it flew into his throat and tried to choke him to death.

Still, Gryffindor won the game and for an 11-year-old First Year, that was all that mattered.

"I'm not saying either of you are wrong, but why would Professor Snape be trying to curse me?" Harry asked his friends. They were back in the Gryffindor common room after the game and he started to take off his Quidditch gear as he listened to their accusations of the Potions Master Professor trying to curse his broom during the game, possibly in attempt to kill him.

"Well, he does seem to have a rather large dislike of you, for starters," said Hermione.

"Yeah, what's up with that, while we're at it?" Harry commented, genuinely asking the question.

"My brothers said he's always been like that, discriminating against all the other houses and letting Slytherin pass with easy grades," Ron scoffed. "Though what they told me doesn't do his attitude against you justice, mate. It's like it's personal or something. Still. Even if he hated you that much, why would he kill you in such a public place?"

"To make it look like an accident, of course," Hermione told them. "If a First Year falling off his broom in his first school Quidditch game didn't kill him, it would seriously injure him at the least, and nobody would suspect foul play, like a curse when it could just as easily be blamed on the student's inexperience, or a faulty broom, or something else like that."

"Scary thought," Ron had to admit.

"Except for the fact that I can fly without a broom and I'd never touch the ground," Harry reminded them with a tired sigh.

"But Snape doesn't know about your..." Hermione glanced around and whispered the last, "... your being a mutant or having mutant powers that would protect you. Most wizards can't do much of anything without a wand or a broom. At least from what I've read of magic so far in our textbooks."

"Oi!" Ron protested the comment. "I resent that! It's not that wizards _can't_ do magic without wands, it's just that most don't want to bother learning how. It takes a lot of focus, my dad tells me. Not to mention it takes extra work for any purely wandless-based magic at all."

"So what else does your dad tell you?" Hermione innocently queried.

Harry and she had both noticed that Ron would tend to slip up and talk about his family in idle passing, usually in matters where he gained advice or specific knowledge from them, but if ever they questioned him directly, he would clam up faster than it took Snape to form a sneer at the start of every class. They enjoyed learning about their friend, and his family as well, so they took the nuggets of information when they came.

Realizing he'd been caught, Ron almost shut his mouth and told her to never mind, but seeing their innocent expressions, he growled to himself and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about being so... private about my family, but to be honest it's nothing new to me. My brothers are all great at something, and Bill and Charlie have already graduated and are the pride of the family. Then look at my other brothers. Percy is probably going to have a job at the Ministry waiting for him the moment he graduates, the Twins are on the Quidditch team, they're the School Pranksters, and their wicked smart too! Even Ginny, the baby, my little sister, she's a right tomboy and better than me at most things!"

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "But we're not friends with your brothers and sister, Ron. We're friends with you. And we just want to get to know you a bit better, is all."

"Harry's right," Hermione agreed. "I'm an only child, so I don't know what it's like having older, or younger siblings. Harry..." she coughed, "... Harry was in an abusive home and he didn't grow up with anything that we might call a loving family. To us, Ron... You're the one with the perfect life. You grew up with a loving father and mother. Older brothers to look out for and care for you, and a younger sister for you to look out for yourself. I can't really imagine anything more wonderful than that."

"Yeah, but, you're really smart," Ron protested. "I mean, _really_ smart! And you're better at magic and schoolwork than I am, and even when we work out together, you're faster than me too. Harry. You, you're the Boy Who Lived! You're a hero, have been since you were a baby, for crying out loud! Not to mention, you've got superpowers and they're bloody brilliant! You know superheroes, you know _Captain Britain _and the _Scarlet Witch_! How can I compete with all that?"

When his friends suddenly started laughing, his face twisted in anguish, until they both grabbed onto him and kept him from getting up. Hermione even fell against him, unable to stay up she was laughing so hard. They got a few weird looks from the others in the common room, but seeing they were First Years, they were quickly ignored.

"Ron," Harry was a bit breathless after laughing so hard. "Ron, first of all... You _never_ have to compete with us. We're your friends, not your brothers, and we're not about to start trying to take attention away from you or anything like that. Second of all, I believe we've already discussed all that Boy Who Lived crap, right?"

Ron winced, but nodded.

"Next, while I agree with you that having powers is pretty cool, they're just as much a responsibility as anything else. For one thing, remember that day you two found out about me? I was panicked because I found out that my cool powers were hurting you guys when I sleep. I had been leaking radiation and if it had gone on for much longer, you guys would start getting sick, maybe even one of you would've died. Why do you think I have to practice everyday for Study Hall? It's so I don't accidentally kill somebody with my powers."

"Lastly," Hermione interrupted, "I will gladly share my smarts with the two of you as much as you want. I'm just glad to have you as my friends. And did it even occur to you that if we know somebody you don't, we can introduce you so that you'll know them too?"

Ron blinked. No, it hadn't occurred to him.

"You, you'd do that?" he asked them both.

Harry shrugged. "I was thinking of spending my Christmas on Muir Island anyway," he answered. "Why don't the both of you come with me? That way I can introduce you to Wanda and Brian both. Not to mention the rest of Excalibur, and if Brian can talk him into it, maybe even Thor."

"Thor?" Hermione and Ron both asked together.

"Yeah, Thor," Harry said. "Y'know, Norse god of thunder and lightning? Son of Odin? The Avenger? Ringing any bells here for you?"

"You, know Thor?" Ron asked. "_The_ Thor?"

Harry just nodded his head, very slowly. "Yeah. He came to the birthday party I had on the island. Hagrid was there too. Speaking of which, we should probably go visit him. Just let me go change first." Before they could protest or hold him back, he hurried up the stairs to the boys dorm room to change into casual wear.

Behind him in the common room, Ron and Hermione stared after their friend for a moment before turning to stare at each other. Suddenly, the redheaded wizard said to his companion, "He knows Thor."

"He went to his birthday party," she said back. "Along with Captain Britain, Excalibur, and the Scarlet Witch. And he claims that it's no big deal."

"Mental," Ron shook his head. "Absolutely mental."

_Hagrid's Hut_

"I'm telling you, Snape did it," Ron said, pacing back and forth in the room available within Hagrid's home. "He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, and both Hermione and I saw him, he didn't take his eyes off you."

"Rubbish," Hagrid guffawed. "Why would Snape do somethin' like that?"

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "I don't understand it either. But these two are insisting upon it."

"Well, he's a Professor," Hagrid said, "An' he's head of Slytherin house, so he probly just likes a good game a Quidditch, and that was a mighty fine game if'n ya ask me."

"Yeah, I still can't believe that dive you made Harry, or the way that you..." Ron suddenly switched from suspicious to enthusiastic in less than a heartbeat. Hermione suddenly coughed/ahem'd pointedly, stopping the conversation from continuing much further.

"Right, well, it was a good game," he added. "But it still doesn't change the facts that Snape tried to kill Harry! And that's just not right."

"So glad you find my company so valuable," Harry sarcastically bit out.

"Oh, you know what I mean," Ron said. "Like Hagrid said, Snape may be a right git, but he's still a professor, and professors aren't supposed to go around killing students."

"Unfathomable logic, Ronald," Hermione commented, sipping some of her tea.

"Oh fine, you convince them," he finally sat down.

"Thank you," she primly replied. "To begin with, I suspect that one reason Snape wants to get Harry out of the way, so to speak, is because he's after whatever is being guarded by that giant three-headed dog on the third floor. I noticed after the troll incident on Halloween, that while Snape was one of the first teachers there, a day later, his leg was severely injured, looking like it had been bitten into, and he wasn't taking it to Madam Pomfrey or the hospital wing for treatment. I saw him getting Filch to help him with it on my way back from the library during Study Hall one afternoon."

Hagrid nearly dropped the teapot, if not for Harry's quick actions. "How'd you know about Fluffy?"

"Fluffy?" all three students repeated together.

"Yeah, uh, well he's mine... bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the..." Hagrid suddenly clammed up and blushing bright red.

"Yes?" said Harry eagerly.

"Now, don't ask me anymore," Hagrid said gruffly. "That's top secret, that is."

"But Snape's trying to steal it!" Ron protested.

"Rubbish," said Hagrid again. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."

"So why did he just try and kill Harry?" cried Hermione. "I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!"

"I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong!" said Hagrid hotly. "I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all three of yeh... yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel..."

"Aha!" said Ron, "so there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?"

Hagrid looked furious with himself. "I shouldn'ta told you that, I should not have told ya that," he berated himself, trying to busy himself with cleaning around his humble abode all of a sudden.

"Hagrid?" Harry suddenly questioned, "Why did you name a giant three-headed hellhound, 'Fluffy' of all things?"

_Hogwarts Library_

"Flamel, Flamel, Flamel... Nothing!" Ron cried, then immediately cringed as he was shushed from multiple directions at once for his exclamation.

"Well, we can't just give up," Hermione rebuked him from the same table. She put down one book and began to reach for another until she realized she was reaching into the stack of books they'd already looked through.

"This is the first clue that we've gotten about what is going on, and I for one would like some answers," Harry said to Ron. "Maybe there's a book here that gives us a basic biography of the man. Who he is, what he's done, maybe even how he knows Dumbledore and why he would know anything about the hell hound and what it's guarding. I don't know... something!"

"All right, all right, all right," Ron let out a suffering sigh. "Well, we've looked through all of these books, and he's not in any of them. Or if he is, he changed his name to somebody else. What if he's never written a book before?"

"Just because a person is not an author, does not mean that someone else, who is an author, would not have written something about them, be it a book, a passage in a book, or an entire literary collection," Hermione chastised her friend. "But you're right, we have looked through all of these. I'll go see about getting us some more." With that, she stood up and left for the stacks.

The two boys watched her leave, not sure how to react. After a moment, they looked at each other and shrugged, before turning back to the few books they still hadn't gone through yet.

Ron looked up, glanced around, and then whispered to Harry, "I still think Snape tried to jinx you off your broom this morning."

Harry suppressed a groan as he rolled his eyes in exasperation and growled at his friend, "Ron!"

Meanwhile, in the stacks, Hermione was searching through row after row of encyclopedias. At least she hoped they were encyclopedias, seeing as the Library at Hogwarts did not subscribe to the Dewey Decimal System, unfortunately. And as much as she respected Madam Pince, the Librarian, she was not about to be the one to suggest it to the respected (translate: terrifying) witch.

Just as she rounded another corner, she almost let out a scream. Standing right in front of her, apparently just waiting there for her in the middle of the row, was her fellow Gryffindor and dorm mate Layla Miller. She was Hermione's height, but with straight yellow-blond hair, which she usually put up in twin ponytails, and had silvery blue eyes. She didn't talk much, or at least hadn't spoken with Hermione since school had began, even though they both shared the same room alongside Pavarti Patil, Lavender Brown, and another Gryffindor first year girl.

"Hello Hermione," Layla greeted the bushy-haired brunette as though expecting to see her here.

"Layla, hi," Hermione replied breathlessly, "You startled me a bit there. My fault I suppose, I should pay more attention to my surroundings, or at least so I'm told..."

"That's all right," the blond smiled. "So, what are you doing here, on a Saturday? I thought I saw you at the Quidditch match, but now you're here."

"Oh, I was," Hermione said, looking more at the bookshelves now rather than at Layla. "At the Quidditch match I mean. Harry was playing, so I had to... oh, no, I didn't mean it that way! What I meant to say was that I..."

"You were supporting your friend," Layla finished for her with another smile.

"Yes, that's it exactly," Hermione sighed in relief.

"What are you looking for?" Layla asked.

"Oh, well, honestly, I'm not sure. It's, well, something of an extra credit project, but more for personal research than for actual credit, if you know what I mean," the brunette sheepishly answered.

"What's the subject about?"

"I'm not entirely sure... All I have is a name, and I can't seem to find the biography section. The name is Nicolas Flamel. I don't suppose that you might have heard of him, would you?"

When Hermione turned to look, she saw Layla sort of staring into space with a faraway expression on her face, until it slowly turned to focus in on a single volume. Stepping up the available step-ladder, made available for those unable to reach the top shelves on their own, she pulled the large and very thick volume down off the shelf and then turned and handed it to the awaiting first year.

"Here you are," Layla said, "This should have exactly what you need. Hermione, would it be all right if I could borrow your star chart for Astronomy class? I need to compare it with mine, if that's all right with you."

"Oh no, not at all," Hermione replied as she took the heavy book. "I'll show it to you later this evening, and that way we can go over it together. It could be we probably both missed some stars here and there, so when we go to class next, we can double-check each others work!"

"Sounds wonderful," Layla smiled mysteriously, "Well, bye then."

"Goodbye," Hermione said over her shoulder, already opening the book in her arms and reading it already. Turning back to it, her eyes slowly went wide at what she read.

Back at their table, Harry and Ron were still going over their current sources of information, and were still having little, if any luck. "Flamel, Flamel, Flamel... Nothing!" Ron cried once more, but much quieter.

Hermione suddenly walked up with an enormous book in her small arms and almost slammed it on the table they were sitting at, except for the fact that every hard surface in the Library was covered with muffling and cushioning charms. "I found it!" she whispered urgently. "Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone! The central basis of all Alchemy!"

Harry snorted in effort to keep from laughing, while Ron paled significantly. Then the redhead looked confused while the former barely kept from snickering, and asked, "What's Alchemy?"

"Oh, honestly Ron!" she huffed and turned the page. "The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)."

"Doesn't answer my question, now does it?" Ron pointedly remarked.

"According to this," Harry pulled out a slim paperback with colorful drawings on both sides of the cover, "Alchemy is an advanced scientific practice and is essentially modern chemistry without traditional reaction mediums, and does not attempt to manipulate forms via their accidents; this principle, called Equivalent Exchange, means that an alchemist cannot create materials from nothing. Using a special inscription called a 'transmutation circle', an alchemist changes matter in three steps: 'analysis', understanding the physical properties of the substance to be transmuted; 'decomposition', breaking the substance down into a rudimentary form; and 'reconstruction', rebuilding the substance under the alchemist's direction. These circles can be drawn on the fly or kept inscribed on a permanent medium; some can even be used as seals, such as the blood-written circle used in rituals. The Philosopher's Stone is a legendary stone said to allow the holder to completely bypass the law of Equivalent Exchange."

"Where did you get that?" Hermione begged.

Still trying to keep from laughing out loud, Harry just handed her the slim paperback. Frowning at his reaction, she chose to look at the cover before reading the passage for herself, and then she was forced to start holding back her own gales of laughter.

"What? What is it? What's so funny?" Ron wanted to know.

"It's one of my birthday presents," Harry cryptically told him, before having to hold his mouth shut to keep from losing control. His face quickly went red from contained laughter.

Hermione, thankfully, had much more control over her reactions, especially since they were in the Library at the moment. "I'm sorry, Ron, it's really not all that funny. Just a bit ironic. You see," she held up the title cover of the slim paperback _manga_ for him to read, the title of which said "_Full Metal Alchemist_" with a colorful picture of a short blond boy in a red coat standing next to a very big suit of armor, "it seems that muggles, already know everything there is about Alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone and have made up fictional stories about it." She clasped her own hand over her mouth to shut in her sudden giggles.

"Bloody hell," Ron shook his head. "Do you know what this means?"

The two muggle-raised magic users, still finding the irony a bit funny, could only shake their heads.

"That dog is guarding the Philosopher's Stone, and Snape is after it!" he hissed.

That stopped their laughter cold. No longer smiling even, Harry and Hermione shared a look before turning to Ron and asking, "Well what should we do about it?" Harry asked. "It only happened this morning, and I doubt anybody is going to believe Snape tried to kill me, _just_ to get a mythological artifact that nobody is supposed to know exists, let alone that it's under that trapdoor on the third floor corridor. Who would believe us? And what reasons, what evidence do we have that will convince them?"

"Professor Dumbledore will," Ron said confidently.

Harry frowned, while Hermione chewed on the thought of going to an authority figure. Before she could say anything though, he spoke first. "Before we do that, I've got an idea..."

Later that evening, after dinner, the three Gryffindors found themselves back in front of that locked door on the third floor corridor. "This is such a bad idea," Ron wailed.

"Normally I'm inclined to argue, but for once, I'm in full agreement with Ron," Hermione cried.

"_Alohomora_!" Harry cast, pointing his wand at the lock. Immediately, the door clicked and he lead the way through, the other two whining piteously as they followed.

Fluffy, and none of them could really believe that such a creature could be called that, was awake when they entered and immediately started growling, until Harry flared his aura a bit and they/it caught a whiff of his scent and remembered the little boy with the big voice. It stopped growling, but it was hardly panting and wagging it's tail just yet.

"Hi Fluffy," Harry greeted the hell hound. The left and right heads both tilted their noggins in opposite directions, seemingly confused by either him speaking or by his use of the creature's name. The central head, however, leaned in close to get a better sniff of the boy's scent.

Without fear, though a bit apprehensive, Harry stepped forward and then stopped once he was in front of the center head's face, and then he just stood there, not daring to move until the hell hound was done with him. Soon, the other two heads reached around and started sniffing him too. Finally, though no one could say what or how exactly, the young mutant wizard seemed to pass Fluffy's inspection and it sat back on it's haunches and just sat there, staring at the children. Still wasn't wagging its tail though.

"Ron, got those things I asked you to ask Fred and George for?" Harry whispered back to his friend, not daring to break eye contact with the great beast before them.

"Yeah, but why did you want _rotten_ meat?" he asked as he brought forth the wrapped package. Harry accepted it, and Ron quickly stepped back while the brave Gryffindor slowly unwrapped it. When it was open enough that the Cerberus clearly caught the scent of what was contained, the children all noted how all three heads suddenly licked their chops.

"Ask Hermione if you really want to know," Harry said as he pulled out the first slab of rotten dragon steak. Without hesitating, or even thinking about making the beast beg for it, Harry tossed it as high as he could to the central head. He quickly pulled out another and tossed it to the head on his right and then another to the head on his left. All three quickly snapped forward and grabbed the flying pieces of meat out of the air and quickly gobbled them down.

"Hell hounds," Hermione explained to Ron in the meantime, "only eat rotten meat. It kind of goes back to the origin of Cerberus, as it was the hell hound guardian of the underworld, and the only meat around for it to eat was, quite literally, dead meat. The taste for it, seems to be mimicked in the whole species it would seem."

"Can we go now?" Ron begged.

"Nope," Harry said. "Gotta look at the traps and everything else that's guarding the Stone. Fluffy here, is a great guard dog, and I have no doubt that nobody wanting to steal the stone is going to get past'em. But, the Stone isn't meant to stay here indefinitely, otherwise they would've either buried it or destroyed it. Putting it in the safest location in all of England is the same as putting it in a high-security vault. Only those that are supposed to, can get into it, but all the same, it can be gotten into."

"And you're trying to convince Fluffy that we're supposed to?" Hermione asked.

"Nope," he said again. "I'm just trying to make nice."

"My brother Charlie says that music can often calm any beast right down," said Ron.

"And did any of us happen to bring a musical instrument along with is?" Hermione critically pointed out.

"No," said Harry, "but then can any of us really play any music worth hearing?"

They all had to shrug at that. "So now what?" she finally asked.

"Can we go in the trapdoor, to check on the Stone, please?" Harry fearlessly asked the three-headed dog.

Ron and Hermione almost face-faulted, if not for the fear that doing so would bring the hell hound down on them like a raging beast. Which hopefully wasn't hungry anymore after a steak apiece.

All three heads once again seemed to uncannily study they boy wizard before it, for the longest time. After twenty seconds, they all feared that it would attack at any moment. Yet all of a sudden, with a single wag of its tail, the great beast rose up, and then stepped back off of the trapdoor and resettled itself. Harry smiled in thanks, but did not linger or look a gift horse in the mouth and lifted the door up and quickly waved Ron and Hermione past.

They fell a short way, probably about ten feet, to suddenly land in something soft, yet tangling and suddenly constricting. Hermione gasped, and shouted, "I read about this in our Herbology books! It's Devil's Snare!"

"It's choking me!" Ron cried out. "I'm so glad we know what it's called, that's a great help!"

"Not helping Ron!" Harry grunted as he struggled with his own vines, but they were quickly becoming quite constricting. "That does it! I've had enough of this!" With that, he ignited a small plasma fire around his body, a flame so bright and so hot that the plant retreated and shrunk back from him and the others faster than they knew what was happening.

"Well... that was easy," Harry chuckled and kept the flame going long enough for them to go down the stone passageway, which was the only way forward.

All they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. The passageway sloped downward, and Harry was reminded of Gringotts. With an unpleasant jolt of the heart, he remembered the dragons said to be guarding vaults in the wizards' bank. Fluffy was one thing, he doubted he was ready to face a dragon of all things!

"Can you hear something?" Ron whispered.

They listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.

"Do you think it's a ghost?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know... sounds like wings to me," said Harry.

"There's light ahead. I can see something moving." Ron pointed out.

They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the

opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door. They watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering... wait. Glittering?

It didn't exactly take a lot of deduction to figure out the purpose of this obstacle, especially when one observed the three brooms settled against the wall. "Yeah," Harry reluctantly looked between the flying keys and the door, "I think I've had about all I can stand of trouble on brooms today. Plus, I've been meaning to try something like this out for a while now."

"Something like what?" said Hermione.

"This," he immediately powered up an impressive amount of plasma and charged it between his hands into a massive plasma beam that exploded against the door and then into the far room and beyond. He called it his Heavy Beam, since once he unleashed it, he couldn't easily move or redirect it. When Harry finally stopped, all they saw, instead of the locked and heavy wooden door, was a burned out hole in the wall, which went into the next room, where another hole went through the opposite wall and into the next room.

"Uh... oops?" he shrugged sheepishly.

"Bloody hell," Ron cursed. Hermione was too stunned to berate him on his language.

Shrugging, Harry lead his friends through into the next room, and found themselves on a giant chessboard. Only things missing, was that both Kings, and all of the middle pieces were either destroyed, or part of the burned out hole Harry's plasma beam had created. "Heh heh, whoops," he chuckled as they moved around the broken pieces and into the next room.

"Oh gawd, not another one!" Ron groaned. All three of them were holding their noses and mouths closed, aside from _absolutely necessary_ breathing, as the unfortunately familiar smell of troll lingered all over the next room.

"Yeah, think I got that one too," Harry pointed to the floor, where the upper half of the troll's remains, which was a lot bigger than the Mountain Troll had been, was burned to a crisp, the head actually absent and seemingly turned to ash from the intensity of the beam. They quickly, and breathlessly, moved past the troll to the next room.

Thankfully, there was nothing very frightening nor disgusting in there, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line. They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.

"Look!" Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry and Ron looked over her shoulders to read it:

_Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_

_Two of us will help you, which ever you would find,_

_One among us seven will let you move ahead,_

_Another will transport the drinker back instead,_

_Two among our number hold only nettle wine,_

_Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line._

_Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,_

_To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_

_First, however slyly the poison tries to hide_

_You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;_

_Second, different are those who stand at either end,_

_But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;_

_Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,_

_Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_

_Fourth, the second left and the second on the right_

_Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._

Hermione let out a great sigh and the boys, amazed, saw that she was smiling, the very last thing either of them felt like doing.

"Brilliant," said Hermione. "This isn't magic. It's logic, a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever."

"But so will we, won't we?" Ron wailed.

"Of course not," said Hermione. "Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three are poison; two are wine; one will get us safely through the black fire, and one will get us back through the purple."

"But how do we know which to drink?" Ron asked. "And which ones are the wine?"

"Give me a minute." Hermione poured over the paper with a look of intense concentration.

"Tell you what, while you're figuring out how to get back," Harry stepped forward, "I'm going to check out what I need to check out." He started to move forward to the black flames.

"Harry! No! You can't, you'll..." Hermione cried out in warning, only to see Harry hold his hand up to the magical flames and hold it steady within them, quite obviously free of pain or injury.

He laughed, and told them, "It tickles. Keep working Hermione. You and Ron still have to get through the purple fire. This won't take me very long, so work fast." Then he resolutely stepped through the black flames and disappeared. His friends stared after him, unable to believe their eyes.

Ron looked and Hermione and said, "Remember when I called him mental, before?" She nodded mutely. "He's not mental. He's _bloody __**insane**_!"

In the chamber where the Philosopher's Stone was being held, Harry found a stone chamber, much like any other room in the magical castle, with pillars and stairs going down to a simple pedestal that held a not too impressive ruby red stone. It wasn't until Harry stepped down the stone stairs that he noticed a chalk white circle on the floor around the pedestal and he realized there was more to this than meets the eye. Still, he now had a rough idea of the protections guarding this thing, and while he certainly couldn't honestly do anything about this last defense of the stone, did not mean there weren't other people who _could_.

And whether he wanted it or not, Harry had taken it upon himself to protect and help his fellow students at Hogwarts. It might be stretching it a bit, but he might as well include helping Professor Dumbledore and the other teachers in their defenses, whether they wanted it or not.

Taking out another of his birthday presents, from Forge, he put on the high-tech looking glasses he'd been specially briefed on, (once all the women were out of the room that is), and activated one of the special features. Not _the_ special feature, but another one, which captured a detailed to-scale digital image of whatever Harry was looking at. Which just so happened to be the entire room the Stone was located in at the moment.

Once he had everything he needed, he put the glasses away and quickly stepped back through the black flames into the potions room. "Figured out how to get back through yet, Hermione?" he asked the moment he was through. She screamed at his sudden arrival, but thankfully he and Ron were composed enough to not start some kind of screaming match.

"Sorry," he apologized. "Ready to go?"

"Gods yes," she gasped, and grabbed a rounded bottle at the right end of the line. "There's only enough for two though." Harry gave her an incredulous look, and she winced, saying, "Right. Forgot. Here Ron," she handed him the bottle after taking a swig herself.

"But... the wine!" Ron whined.

"Care to see if that potion makes you immune to plasma fire as well as magic fire?" Harry growled.

Without comment, he chugged the last of the potion and all three escaped, remembering to hold their breaths as they raced through the troll room into the chess room and then all the way back up the passage to the trapdoor entrance. "Huh," Harry grunted, looking up. "Never flown with passengers before. I don't count Neville, since I kind of broke his fall more than flew with him. Well, first time for everything."

"Uh, I think I've got an alternative," Ron said to Harry's reluctance. He pulled out a complex looking hand held device that neither of the other two recognized. Until Ron attached it to his belt and then flipped a switch on it before a grappling line suddenly shot up and attached itself to the ceiling/floor next to the trapdoor.

"It can retract over 300 lbs and hold over 500," he told them. "My dad's kind of an inventor. Don't ask."

"Why bother," Hermione muttered. "You clam up the moment we start asking, and now is hardly the time to be having meaningless conversations. No offense Harry, but until you're certain you can safely carry me, I think I'll just borrow Ron's device."

"Uh... I've only got the one," he embarrassingly admitted. She glared at him while Harry chuckled and ignited his plasma flame and started to wrap it around his feet for the anticipated thrust needed for flight.

"Stop it you two, or you're going to make me die laughing here," Harry laughed at their expressions. "Besides, it's not like you two are old enough to even be interested in that romance stuff. It's purely a matter of necessity. And you're friends. It's OK to hug your friends Hermione."

"Oh, all right already!" she exclaimed and grabbed Ron about the neck and told him to make it as quick as possible. Agreeing, he started retracting, taking them off the floor and up to the trapdoor.

Harry waited until they were almost there before taking off from the ground himself. He was at the roof in less than a second and very quickly had the trapdoor open enough for the other two to crawl out of. Pushing it a bit higher, he flew fast out of it, barely getting his feet clear in time before it slammed shut once more. Turning to thank Fluffy, they said their good nights and almost exactly half an hour from the moment they entered the corridor, they left and hurried back to the Gryffindor common room, just in time for curfew.

An hour after that, Dumbledore called an emergency meeting of all the teaching staff, and had them all meet in the third floor corridor, with Hagrid to help subdue Fluffy if needed. Every single last one of them were stunned and shocked to see all their carefully designed traps and defenses had been so easily overcome, even the troll that Quirrell had put in place had been killed. Easily it seemed. In fact the only defenses left in place were Snape's logic/potion trap, and the ward Dumbledore had placed around the Stone itself.

At least that's what they thought until one of them noticed that the antidote for the escape potion had been drunk to the last drop, even though the potion with the single dosage of continuing had not been touched. What really stumped the Professors of Hogwarts though, was what kind of magic could blast holes through four walls, transfigured statues, a charmed door that cannot be unlocked save for one key only, and the meanest ugliest smelliest troll available?

_Please Read & Review!_


	8. Island Assault: First Fight

_Muir Island_

The very next day, which just so happened to be Sunday, Harry went up to the Headmaster's office directly, with Ron and Hermione tagging along, and convinced him that he needed to show his two new friends, who knew he was a mutant, the island facility where he spent his summer. He also pointed out that he needed to speak with Forge about something urgent, while absently toying with the black box he'd gotten for his birthday between his hands. That seemed to clench it and pretty soon he handed the three children a plain looking saucer, which he had turned into a Portkey and told them that they only had to say the word 'Activate' when they wanted to return.

While they all three held onto it, Harry said the word, and with the disturbing feeling of a being dragged forward by a hook embedded into your gut, they suddenly found themselves on Muir Island in the arboretum.

"Oh heavens, I'm going to be sick," Hermione dropped her hand from the saucer, folding over into a crouch on the ground while holding her abdomen.

"Never did fancy Portkeys," Ron tutted, hanging on to their mode of transport while Harry helped Hermione over to one of the benches right before joining her there.

"I'm told you get used to it," Harry said aloud.

"Oh, you do. It just never gets any better, you just get used to it after a while," Ron told them.

"Harry? Whot are ye doin' here?" Moira found them.

"Hey Moira!" Harry perked up considerably, even going up to the auburn haired doctor for a hug, which was enthusiastically received. "Is Forge busy? I would have called ahead, but it's kind of both urgent and needs to be kept a secret. Oh, where's my head at? These are my friends from school. Ronald Weasley, born and raised with a magic family. And Hermione Granger, raised by her parents, whom are neither witch nor wizard. She still gets top grades in all of our classes. Even Potions."

"Aye, ah remember ye tellin' us about that horrid man," said Moira as she led the three children towards Forge's lab, which is where he could be found most often. "Now what are ye really here for? Is yer powers givin' ye any more trouble? Any new skills ye'd like te be showin' off soon?"

"Maybe," Harry chuckled. "I've been practicing every day. Even using the workout programs that Brian developed for me. Ron and Hermione here have joined me for a few of those."

"Oh, is that so? Well, we'll just have te see 'bout given ye a better workout then, won't we?" she teased.

Finally, they made it to Forge's workshop, and weren't surprised to find him knee-deep in some project, but in turn Moira wasn't surprised to find him immediately dropping it to help Harry, despite the younger mutant's restraint in even asking for his help when he saw the man already busy with something.

"Nonsense Harry," Forge waved off his protests, "It's an ongoing project that I've been working on for months and will still be working on months from now. A little time spent helping you out won't make one bit of difference for this behemoth here. Now what have you got for me? PDR messing up on you already?"

Frowning with confusion, Harry repeated, "PDR? Wait, you _finally_ settled on a name for it with Beast and you come up with _PDR_?"

"Portable Danger Room," Forge supplied with a grin.

"How about _Cube of Death_, or _COD_," Harry grinned back, earning a mock-hurtful look from the man.

"Cute, kid. Now gimme," he said, holding out his hand.

Instead of receiving the black cube that could become a fully simulated holographic environment and training facility, Harry placed his 'special' glasses into the tech genius's hands. Surprised, Forge gave the mutant wizard a questioning look.

"Hogwarts, due to its reputation of being the safest place in the world," Harry began to explain, "is hosting the presence of a rare mystical artifact, which is being targeted for theft, as one attempt on it's last location has already been tried. The Professors have set up a series of security measures, protections if you will, for the artifact's location within the castle. Now, normally that would all be well and good, except for what happened on Halloween, and then there's the fact that Ron and Hermione think one of the Professors 'guarding' the artifact, tried to kill me yesterday morning during the Quidditch match."

"Quid-what?" Forge asked.

Wincing and shrugging at Ron's horrified expression, Harry quickly explained. "Quidditch. Wizarding sport. Sort of like a cross between Cricket, Football (European style), and Basketball, but played on flying brooms."

Now it was Forge's turn to look horrified as he begged, "Please tell me you're joking."

Laughing, Harry shook his head.

"Damn stereotypes," Forge muttered as he lead them over to a bank of computers.

"So, what is it you need from me? One of the teachers trying to kill you aside, really not all that uncommon around here, what is the problem with this artifact's current protections?" he asked as he placed the glasses into a specific port on one computer.

"Nothing," Harry answered. "Except for the fact that the three of us got past them yesterday afternoon and I got scans of the room where the artifact is actually placed. Even got a good look at it. What I'd like to do is add to them. Sort of an extra protection. Where it will let any authorized person retrieve the artifact, and contain or disable any and all unauthorized people."

"No problem, security systems are one of my, many, specialties," Forge grinned as he worked on the computer, retrieved the necessary data, and then began to tinker with a couple of gadgets. "Trick comes in, who's authorized?"

"Professor Dumbledore."

"Why just him?" the tech genius questioned.

Harry shrugged, glancing at his friends for a moment before answering, "Because he's the Headmaster, and the artifact wouldn't even be at Hogwarts unless he wanted it safe. Anyone else, well, nobody else really has a good reason for being close to it anyway, other than to take it for themselves, or for another."

"Good enough for me. I take it, since he's not here himself, that your Professor Dumbledore doesn't know you're requesting this extra security feature on his behalf?"

Harry just grinned and shook his head.

"Good man. I like troublemakers. Reminds me of me when I was a, what do you call yourself again? Oh yeah, a scrawny little git!" Forge laughed out loud as Harry scowled and crossed his arms moodily.

"I'll have to make this trap pretty much impervious to magic, or at least highly resistant. Not to mention, judging the way things can go screwy around Wanda, I'll have to either shield, or invent a whole new way for technology to survive around magic energy fields. I've got a lot to work out on this. I take it you don't want anything... lethal?" he asked just to clarify.

Harry paled, though Ron looked thoughtful to the question, and the mutant wizard quickly shook his head to the negative. "No! Just containment until Professor Dumbledore would show up to let them out. How long will it take you to finish it?"

"Give me a week. Oh, and here. Thanks for the scans, I have no doubt they'll be a big help. And as I recall, today's a Sunday, so that means you've got pretty much the whole day off, right?" Forge grinned, which was quickly matched by Harry. "Why don't you show your friends around the facility? Maybe even fit in a full Danger Room session. I heard Excalibur in their earlier, so I'm sure Brian, Kurt or even Pete would be glad to oblige you."

He scrunched his face up as the last name was mentioned. He may have forgiven the mutant secret agent for his poor tactics from a month ago, but Harry still didn't like the hot-knife wielding mutant for numerous other reasons.

Harry quickly left Forge's workshop, Hermione and Ron following along, both of them staring around the place, more than a little intimidated, though for different reasons certainly. "Come on," Harry said, "I'll show you around! This place is great!"

He started by giving them the same basic tour he'd gotten when he first arrived this past summer. First the kitchens, then the arboretum, then the lab, the doctor's office, and he even snuck them into the Danger Room. Well, the control room for it anyway. Thankfully nobody was using it by that point.

As he lead them outside to show them exactly where they were, Harry began to wonder where everybody else was. At the very least, Sean and Jamie should be around somewhere, but during the near-hour long tour so far, they hadn't come across any of those staying at the Research Center. It was a bit odd, but then Harry hadn't exactly announced his visit beforehand, so he didn't make a big deal about it.

It wasn't until they were heading back to the Center and heard an explosion from within that they really knew something was wrong. The three Gryffindors only paused a moment to glance at one another before running forward together. Inside, Harry waved them back and they slowed down as he quickly lead them from the Northeast entrance to the briefing room, where Harry knew they could get access to the security system and at the least see what was going on. Along the way they heard at least another three explosions, so they knew whatever it was, it was still going on.

Sneaking into the security monitoring station, Harry had Hermione lock the door while he booted up the monitors and tried to find out exactly what was going on here. Ron stood back, feeling more than a bit useless and anxiously looking over Harry's shoulder at the wall of screens before them as Harry cycled through all the channels until they caught some sign of whatever was happening out there. It didn't take long for Harry to tune into the cameras that were in the courtyard, which just happened to be outside of Forge's workshop.

"Wait, what is that?" Hermione pointed at one monitor where they saw a small green-skinned man hopping about and lashing out with a tongue that was longer than Hagrid was tall. He seemed to be harassing, or much rather attacking Sean and Kitty, alongside a very large muscled man with claws and long yellow hair.

"Sean and Kitty!" Harry answered, as he tuned all the other monitors to the same and surrounding locations. Very soon they had a more or less complete picture of what was going on. Harry had even managed to activate the audio pickups and radios so they could hear as well as see.

"Who are these blokes?" Ron asked.

They had identified no less than six total strangers, while Harry pointed out his friends amongst them, which included Jamie, Sean, Kitty, Kurt, Pete, Betsy, Alison, Piotr, Meggan, and Brian. Also known as (seeing that they were in costume at the moment) Multiple Man, Banshee, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, Pete Wisdom, Psylocke, Dazzler, Colossus, Meggan and Captain Britain.

Despite trying his best, and all three of them actively looking, they couldn't find Forge or Moira on the monitors. Even looking in the infirmary and the briefing room right outside and all around the compound, they couldn't see either of them. Getting worried, Harry watched with Ron and Hermione as, despite superior numbers, the defenders were slowly being pushed back by the six invaders.

In concordance with what they saw on the screens, they felt and heard the explosion as the fattest man any of them had ever seen threw Colossus through a few walls where he apparently hit something explosive. The real cause of damage, however, was the man controlling it all. He never stayed in frame long enough to get a good look at him, but they saw that he wore a regal purple cape and a fashioned red helmet. The worst part was that he seemed able to control metal and twist it in any which way he desired. Which included Colossus' own body to use against his teammates and friends.

"We've got to do something," Harry cried as he witnessed the wild clawed man throw Psylocke into Shadowcat, knocking both of them back.

"What can we do? We're just kids, and they're... they're... Well, I don't right know _what_ they are, but there's not exactly a lot we can do compared to what's already being done!" Ron argued back.

"Harry's right," Hermione set her jaw, determined. "We have to do something."

"What?" Ron was no longer arguing, he seemed to be really asking them.

"I don't know!" Harry shouted. "Something!"

"That's a real help, isn't it?" said Ron sarcastically.

"I'm going out there!" he moved to the door, only to be stopped by his friends.

"Hold on mate!" Ron grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Harry! You can't be serious!" Hermione cried out.

"What do you think it is I've been training for? Huh? To make sure my powers don't hurt anyone, yeah, but also so I could go out and _actually protect them_ too! Against threats like these! Now I'm going out there, and you aren't going to stop me. So, please... don't make me have to move you by force."

Startled at this change in their friend, the witch and wizard backed up, glancing nervously at each other. Finally, they sagged a little and nodded to each other first, then looking him in the eye.

"OK, fine," said Ron with a sigh of resignation. "We won't stop you. But that doesn't mean you have to go out there half-cocked and not knowing what to do or how to do it, all right?"

Hesitating, he finally nodded his head, tentatively agreeing to what they were saying.

"There's not much I can do," Hermione said, moving back to the wall of monitors, "But I think I can guide you to where you can do the most good. I'm also going to keep trying to find Mr. Forge and Dr. MacTaggert. Here," she reached down and then handed them some earpieces that seemed to be part of the security setup, "We'll use these to remain in contact. I'll be able to hear you on the audio pickups, and then I'll speak to you through the radios."

"Sounds good," Harry nodded as he accepted the earpiece and placed it appropriately.

"Wish I'd brought more with me," Ron grumbled as he rummaged through the pockets of his school uniform. "Don't care how silly it is, from now on, I'm going to every bloody class fully outfitted."

"Ron? What are you doing?" Harry slowly asked.

"Looks like this is it," the redhead sighed again. "Here. You'll need these."

"What are they?" he questioned, looking but not yet taking the proffered items.

Ron held out to Harry three basic items, although there was a whole handful of one of those items. The first they all noticed was the sticker sheet, with only a single sticker missing, but they were all of funny little pictures. Next, in his left hand, Ron held a hand full of glass marbles that weren't really distinctive in any way, and in his right hand, he held a string yo-yo.

"My dad and brothers sort of invented them. The Twins invented the marbles, but Dad came up with the yo-yo. When you throw one of the marbles at someone, they're briefly stunned and then tied up like a Christmas turkey, nicely gift-wrapped too. The yo-yo, if you know how to use one, carries the most powerful combination of disarming, disabling, stunning, and bludgeoning spells that my dad could put into this thing. So long as you hit the roll on the end to whoever is in front of you, they'll get blasted back like you shot them with a cannon! Uh, you _do_ know how to use a yo-yo, right Harry?"

"Of course I know how to use a yo-yo!" he exclaimed. "Dudley got one for his fourth birthday. Tossed it out the next day. I spent the rest of that month practicing and playing with it at the park until I got all the tricks mastered. Well, all of the basic tricks. Can't do any of the fancy stuff."

"Oh good, then here..." Ron handed him the enchanted tools.

"No," Harry waved off the yo-yo, accepting the marbles though, "I'll take these, but just in case, you'd better hang on to that thing. If any of those... attackers come this way, you'll need something to protect yourself. Besides, you're forgetting that I've got powers too y'know. Now what's with the stickers?"

"Oh, well, each of them has a different spell-effect," Ron explained. "See, the closed eyes are for Disillusionment charms, makes you invisible, see? There're others, like the question mark, it's for a 'Notice Me Not' spell, although more often they're also called 'Anti-muggle' charms. I'd tell you what they all do, but we really don't have the time. Right now, I think you'd best stick with the invisible one. It's temporary, so you'll have to re-apply new ones when it wears off. Lasts about a quarter of an hour."

"Good to know," Harry nodded, accepting the sheet and taking off a few of the 'invisible' stickers for himself. Before he placed one on his forehead, he turned to them and said, "Keep the sheet. If they do make it in, you'll need a few invisibility spells yourself. Especially if that yo-yo can't keep them out. Wish me luck!" Then he disappeared and went for the door.

"Good luck," both his friends whispered after him.

_Outside Courtyard_

The Brotherhood had attacked out of nowhere, as they tend to do, but what made this different from the norm was the intensity at which they struck today. Sabertooth was even more focused than any had ever seen him before, going for simple, straightforward offense or defense, with no wild carnage thrown in between. One would almost swear that they weren't the actual Brotherhood, save for Magneto's presence. And as much as he'd been imitated over the years, once you met the real deal, there was no mistaking that attitude.

Still, after the first few minutes of fighting, when Excalibur and other Muir Island residents were still reacting to the attack, it became clear that this was not just another brawling clash with the evil-inclined Brotherhood of Mutants. They were after something and their mission was to find it at all costs.

Even more odd, other than the obligatory insults that had been traded at the beginning, the battlefield had been silent beyond the sounds of fighting. Magneto wasn't shouting out orders or repeating himself or even telling them what to look for. Mystique and Toad were the ones that were actually searching for anything, while Pyro and Magneto used their powers for long-range assaults, and Sabertooth and Blob on the other hand were the ones that fought close-up with Excalibur's heavy-hitters, and at the same time kept them off Mystique and Toad's backs allowing them to continue with their search.

The worst part of it though was in how they'd been caught, metaphorically speaking, with their pants down and despite their powers, Multiple Man, Shadowcat, and Colossus had been taken out of the fight within the first few minutes, the first two being knocked out, the latter being used by Magneto against the others, forcing him to remain in his human form, which wasn't quite as durable or useful in a fight.

Nightcrawler did what he could, but he'd been limited the moment Jamie and Kitty were KO'd, and had taken on the role of person-to-person ambulance, taking and guarding the casualties from the rest of the fighting, which had the unfortunate side-effect of evening up the odds for the Brotherhood.

Banshee and Dazzler were teaming up as often as they could to disorient their foes, but they often had their hands full with Pyro sending flaming constructs at them, despite their ability to combine their powers of sound and light to empower the other. Captain Britain was going head-to-head with his sister against Magneto, but both of them being close-range fighters were finding it difficult to get close enough to really do anything. Meggan, Pete Wisdom, and the humanized Colossus meanwhile were stuck with the remaining four, though more often just Blob and Sabertooth.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here, Magneto?" Captain Britain screamed as he flew for the Master of Magnetism, dodging and punching away obstacles that were put into his path.

"I do not deign to answer _homo sapiens_ that cheat using magic tricks in hopes of mimicking mutant superiority! As for our presence, that is quite simply, none of your concern," Magneto sneered, disturbingly similar to the way a certain Potions Master sneers. Then he used his powers to rip off the metal paneling from one of the nearby walls and used them to swat Captain Britain from both sides.

"OK, how about answering my questions then!" Psylocke moved in close, using her ingrained ninja skills to dodge any and all of Magneto's attacks. Between one step and the next, she suddenly held her psychic blade in both hands, moving in dangerously close to the leader of the Brotherhood.

"What is it exactly that you've got your stooges looking for, eh?" she asked, even as she flipped over a metal barrier, jumped off it, and got to within range of Magneto's electromagnetic forcefield.

"As I informed your brother, Miss Braddock," Magneto calmly retorted, even as he used his powers to bend a couple of metal bars and then directing them to wrap themselves around the psychic mutant's torso and arms, "It is none of your concern."

"In case it wasn't obvious," she growled even as she twisted and destroyed the metal bonds holding her mid-air, "this is our _home_! You're the one that has no right to be here, even if it wasn't just to steal something from us. You may think you have the best of intentions Magneto, but your methods are highly suspect!"

"You X-Men are all pathetic!" the older mutant shouted. "Unwilling to do what is necessary, to sacrifice what is necessary to ensure mutant superiority!"

"Those kind of debates are best left between you and the Professor," Captain Britain shouted back, having recovered from the two-sided attack.

"And in case you didn't know this," Psylocke screamed from close range.

"We're not the X-Men," Brian picked up his sister's call.

"WE'RE EXCALIBUR!" they both shouted together, Captain Britain flying in and providing the brute force necessary to buckle the electromagnetic forcefield protecting their enemy, while Psylocke slipped in with her psionic blades and managed to scratch him so that he felt just enough pain to disrupt his concentration, dropping the forcefield, and allowing Captain Britain time to land a full force punch to the mutant's head.

"AARRRGGHHHH!" He cried out as he was thrown backwards, pain from Psylocke's strikes and Captain Britain's punch temporarily paralyzing him. Magneto, despite being powerful and experienced, was not invincible by any means, and that punch wasn't just any punch.

Seeing that the heavy hitter was down for the count, even if only for a minute or two, Captain Britain quickly turned to aid his teammates, heading straight for Pyro to relieve Dazzler and Banshee. Psylocke, on the other hand, not willing to turn her back on such a dangerous foe, advanced on the prone villain, her blades crackling with anticipating energy.

Meanwhile, Harry was being slowly guided through the empty halls from the security room to the location of the battle. Having spent the latter few months of the summer at the Center, he knew his way around well enough, it's just that he needed Hermione and Ron's help to avoid being prematurely detected, as well as to even find the battle in the first place.

Hermione had told him that only the helmet guy and the pyromaniac were still in the courtyard outside of Forge's lab. The blue skinned lady and the hopping green guy were moving all around the complex, but never staying in one spot for long. The brawl between the brutes on the other hand, while not as mobile, the super strong punches and everything else was sending one or the other, on both sides of the fight, flying through walls thus progressing the battle to different locations.

And unfortunately, she just told him that the big yellow-haired guy and Pete were just one room over, and there was a chance that they would soon find him, or at least see him given the way their fight was playing out. Pete Wisdom's mutant power was to create red-hot energy blades, and he didn't always have to throw them to make effective use of his power. Against Sabertooth, he switched to his tried and true melee method, where he kept the energy blades in his hands. In fact, he formed them around each of his fingers, giving him rather effective red-hot energy claws to swipe and slice with.

Therefore, despite Sabertooth being, physically, the superior close-combat fighter, those energy claws gave him pause. Especially after the first swipe that landed with a few scars across his chest. He had his own healing factor, but against the wounds caused by those claws, it seemed to be having quite a bit of trouble. He was still bleeding from them for one, despite gaining that wound almost ten minutes ago!

Ducking down, Harry glanced through an open doorway and witnessed a minute or two of the fight, seeing that Hermione was right and there was a chance of him being discovered prematurely. Knowing and trusting Ron's warning about the limited use, he checked his invisibility sticker and that it was still making him unable to be seen, unless of course you looked really, really close. Still good, for the moment.

Moving as quietly as he possibly could, which really wasn't necessary with the amount of noise going on between the two combatants, he slipped through one room and out the other side into an adjoining hallway. Only for Hermione to nearly scream a warning in his ear, just in time to let him avoid the blue lady sneaking past in the other direction.

Worried about that, Harry found one of the audio pickups and whispered urgently to his friends, "I don't like the way these two are going around like they're looking for something. Hermione, I need you and Ron to find Forge and Moira as quickly as you possibly can."

"But... but, how?" she finally asked him.

"Use the security system. Forge designed it and built it. It should definitely be able to find him and Moira without any trouble. Meanwhile, I'm going to go and take care of that green guy. He shouldn't be too much trouble here," he told them confidently.

"Oh! Harry!" she suddenly cried out over the headset.

Harry wondered what it could be now, hoping that they'd found Forge and Moira though, when he looked down and noticed that he was no longer invisible... or alone.

"Not too much trouble, eh?" a cockney accent growled out from above him.

"Bugger," Harry winced, and prepared to fight.

_Infirmary_

Moira MacTaggert leaned over the prone body of Jamie Maddox, taking care to exactly place the bandages around his head. If he'd been conscious, he probably would have been making lewd comments or at the least checking out her rack. Even knocked out the way he was, she almost expected some kind of reaction out of him. That he gave none was more cause for worry than anything her medical training was telling her.

"I should be back out there!" Nightcrawler exclaimed.

"We need you here, Kurt," Forge cut the teleporter off. "In case Mystique or Toad actually manage to find us, I'll need you to get me and Moira out of here as soon as possible. While I'd love to say I know exactly why the Brotherhood is here and what for, I don't. I have several suspicions though, and their tactics give credit towards my theory. I just hope Harry and his friends are still outside the Center and safe."

"What is Harry doing here, anyway?" Nightcrawler asked.

"Needed my help with a small project for school," was Forge's simple reply. Most of his attention was focused on the computer monitor he was at. From there, he'd hacked his own security system and was doing his best to keep anybody from figuring out where they were. So far, it seemed to be working.

"What kind of project?" the blue-furred mutant asked.

"Needs a better security system for something that's being kept hidden at the school," was Forge's short reply. To which the teleporter acknowledged with a brief, "Ah. Got it." After all, they both knew Professor X sometimes kept certain items of intrinsic value underneath his school for mutants in his own little vault. And Forge was usually the one he got to design said vault in the first place.

They were distracted from any further commentary by a rather loud, which meant nearby, explosion and a series of heavy thuds. The thuds continued, both in frequency and in volume, until Forge's eyes went wide and he looked directly at the wall that the thuds echoes were originating from. The last two were so loud that whatever it was might as well have been in the room already.

"DOWN!" the older mutant screamed, helping Moira to cover their unconscious comrades.

A moment later, the heaviest and loudest thud of them all crashed against the steel-lined wall and a serious dent appeared in the middle of it. The dent almost seemed to be straining, clearly holding back something that had incredible force behind it, but it wasn't yielding just yet either. Finally, the wall, or rather the dent, just cracked and there was a brief flash of blinding light, but it seemed to fade and the central crack quickly spread out and resulted in the entire dent in the steel wall crumbling like a cookie in the hands of a hungry toddler.

A much softer thud sounded in the quiet infirmary, but this was more like that of a body slumping to the floor than anything more drastic than that. When they'd all gathered enough courage to look, they all blinked, surprise and disbelief clouding their minds with shock.

There lay an unconscious, covered with first degree burns, and still sizzling Toad, the steel wall crumbled into debris around him, and a hole that, when they stepped in front of it, went all the way back to a hallway on the other side of the wing, which just happened to go through no less than seven rooms and almost twice that many walls. Not that any of them had any kind of super vision to see it as clearly, but it was hard to miss the fact that there was a small body covered in brilliant white plasma flames at the end of the series of holes in the walls.

"So much fer him bein' safe an sound," Moira scoffed. "Well? Dinnae jus' stand there wit' yer mouths hangin' open, catchin' flies. Help me tie'em up!"

On the other side of the line of holes, Harry watched on as Moira and everyone else that was missing from the battle quickly tied up the green hopping guy while still making sure not to be spotted by anybody else.

"Well, that is the answer to one question," Harry mumbled to himself. Out loud, he said so the audio pick-ups could hear, "Found Moira and everyone else. They're in the Infirmary. Forge is at the computer there, probably blocking the cameras from seeing them. Hermione?"

"Thank goodness for that," Hermione's voice came over the radio. "Are they all right? Are you all right? That toad-creature almost got the drop on you."

"Yeah, I'm beating myself up about it enough as it is, Hermione," he grumbled. "I'm going to see if I can't sneak around to get the drop on a few of the others that are around here."

"Harry! Wait! I thought you only went out to find Dr. MacTaggert and Mr. Forge! You found them, now tell them where we are and get back here and let the adults handle this!" she screamed at him.

"Sorry Hermione," he chuckled, "Radios must be running low on batteries, you're starting to break up. Didn't quite catch all of that last bit there. Besides, what do you think I've been training for? To be normal?"

"Harry!" she screeched.

Not saying anything further, Harry quickly moved on, keeping an eye out for any more surprises. Still, he ran as quickly as he could for the courtyard where the major battles were still being fought. He only had to duck out of the way of Pete and Sabertooth three more times before he found himself just outside of Forge's work shop, with only a full room and a couple walls between him and the major fighting.

So of course the blue skinned lady had to show up out of nowhere and ambush _him_!

"Got you, you little X-Brat!" she growled, grabbing him by his throat and actually holding him off the ground by nothing but the grip on his neck.

"Ghkkk!" he shouted back at her. What he actually meant was, 'Hey! That's not fair, I was supposed to surprise you!' or something to that effect.

"We'll probably need you as collateral to escape, now that Toad's been captured, and seeing how even these X-misfits are so protective of the innocent, I'm sure they'll agree it will be more than a fair enough trade for Toad and the information we need," she purred, dragging him along, barely letting his feet touch the floor, her surprisingly strong hands choking his air supply.

"Now if only I could actually get Sabertooth to calm down enough to remember the plan..." she mumbled to herself. "And where _is_ that blasted disk with the Sentinel plans!"

Harry didn't really have anything to say, as it was a struggle for him just to remain conscious and continue breathing. So it was really difficult for him to carry on a conversation with his kidnapper, let alone even think of using his powers to escape from her.

Finally, dragging him halfway back to the arboretum, where Pete and Sabertooth were _still_ fighting, she finally just tossed him, hard, against a wall, stunning him enough for her to pull out some rope from somewhere and bind him up nice and tight. Harry was too busy getting oxygen into his lungs to care to really do anything about it. To make it worse, she added another coil of rope back around his neck.

_'OK, enough with the choking already!'_ he screamed in his mind.

"Stop right there Wisdom!" she suddenly shouted, distracting both brawlers. "Or the X-brat here will be an unfortunate casualty!"

"Bloody Hell Mystique! I knew you Brotherhood blokes were downright ruthless, but he's just a kid! A mutant kid at that!" Pete Wisdom growled at her, stepping back from Sabertooth, but keeping his claws active.

Snarling a bit herself, she tugged sharply on the rope around his throat, choking Harry again, and forcing Pete to deactivate his powers. Sabertooth chuckled, saying, "You X-Freaks are all the same. Pansies, every last one of you. Won't even fight when you have the chance to the moment you think somebody's about to get hurt. Bwahahahaha! Maybe we should off the X-brat now, before he has time to become an X-Freak!"

Three things right there, Sabertooth should not have said. Freak, the word his... the word _Vernon_ always called him. Making note of the fact that Pete Wisdom, a member of Excalibur, was choosing to not do anything when there was something he _could_ do to save the situation, a twisted reminder of Harry's own personal vow to be the protector of his fellow students at Hogwarts. And laughing in a manner that was disturbingly similar, if not downright identical to the way Dudley laughed when he and his gang used to torment and beat on Harry after, and sometimes during school.

He couldn't breath, the wind had been knocked out of him, and this Mystique lady was exerting pressure on him, both emotional and physical, in order to ensure his mutant powers didn't become active. That's OK.

He didn't need to breathe.

With a crack of thunder, the bluish-white plasma flame ignited around Harry's body, burning away the ropes and giving Mystique some new scars to remember him by. Remaining aloft, actually hovering a couple feet off the ground, Harry growled out through his sore throat, "I. Don't. Like. Being. **BULLIED!**"

As he screamed the final word, a plasma wave exploded from his young body, knocking Mystique back and away, while Pete and Sabertooth tried to defend themselves. Harry glared at Sabertooth, who'd been through Counter-Terrorism training and had even become a murderer several times over in his very long life, and was actually impressed, admitting to a sensible amount of fear when the kid looked at him like that. His eyes weren't eyes, but glowing suns, blinding white light shining forth giving the kid an almost god-like anonymity and intensity.

Victor Creed might have chosen to say something back to the kid, probably to intimidate and prove that he was nothing but a bully, even to his friends, but he never got the chance, as Harry just pointed one open fist at him and the next thing the older mutant was even aware of was being blasted back by a force that both burned him and knocked the wind out of him. He tried to get back up, but the kid expected that as another plasma beam struck him dead center.

Growling now, Sabertooth rolled to his feet, ignoring the pain of his injuries as he prepared to leap at the kid and rip his tiny little head off. That was the plan, until the kid looked up at him, smiled in a creepy way (which just went to further impress the older mutant) and held up his other hand. The moment before Sabertooth landed, sixteen arrow-shaped plasma bolts, with twists on them, shot out at near the speed of light and struck several points on the man's body. Then they exploded with the force of two plasma beams each, throwing him back into the wall and fall to the ground, massive third-degree burns already beginning to heal.

All was quiet for a minute or two, and then Pete slowly stepped forward and asked the young mutant, "Harry? You all right there?" Harry continued to hover there, the plasma flame cocooned around him like some kind of fusion of protective shield and his raging power. After another minute, he calmed down and allowed himself to settle on the ground, and his eyes stopped glowing, or rather shining at least. The plasma flame remained though, so Pete didn't get too close for the time being.

"Not yet, but I will be. Can you handle these two from here on?" Harry asked.

"Sure, especially since they're unconscious and all. But what exactly do you think you'll be doing, young man? Moira would..." Harry interrupted him before he got much further.

"Moira is in the Infirmary with Nightcrawler, Forge and the others. Brian, his sister, and everyone else are still out there fighting that flame maniac and the metal-flinging old guy. I'm not about to try and tie up two adult mutants who I'm not even sure who they are nor what their powers are. But at least out there, I have the element of surprise whereas you wouldn't. Unless we both go out there and just leave them here to wake up on their own. Either way, I'm going out there to help."

"Pyro and Magneto," was all Pete Wisdom said to him, even as he started looking to bind Mystique.

"Huh?"

"Flame maniac and old metal-flinging dude. Pyro and Magneto. And the really, really fat guy, if you run into him, is called the Blob. For obvious reasons. If you're going to help, you'd better go. Or, at least help me tie them up and then we can go out together," Wisdom explained.

"And leave them unguarded? I don't think so," was all Harry said with a smirk, right before he launched himself into the air and before he began to streak down the hallways he added, "Here. Use these," and tossed the MI13 agent a few of the marbles Ron had given to him. In demonstration, one of the ones he threw landed on Mystique and immediately had her wrapped up like a Boxing Day duck.

After tossing a few others to Pete Wisdom for Sabertooth, Harry took off at high speed down the corridors of the Center, aiming for the site of the primary battle. "Note to self; ask Forge for flying simulations before going back to Hogwarts," he said to himself as he nearly flew into or through the walls several times.

He was getting closer to the courtyard, and in fact had just passed the area where Mystique had caught him, so of course that's exactly when it happened. Harry ran head first into what felt like a brick wall covered in inch-thick foam. Given the speed he'd been flying at, it meant it hurt a lot when he bounced off whatever it was and fell to the ground. Looking up, Harry felt like cursing up a storm as he saw the back of the Blob.

The surprising bit came when he realized that the mountain of fat and muscle didn't even seem to have noticed him. Looking left and right, the Blob just scratched his back, the spot Harry had hit, and shrugged. It seemed that he was doing guard duty, or something as he was just standing there. Looking between the giant's legs, and he really was just as tall and even bigger around than Hagrid was, Harry saw what he was looking at.

Apparently, somewhere in the last half hour since he'd been in the security room, the tide of battle had shifted several times, back and forth. It was now down to Dazzler, Banshee, Psylocke, and Captain Britain against Pyro and a disheveled looking Magneto.

Why Blob was just standing there looking at it, Harry couldn't begin to guess, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth by wasting an opportunity to ambush the bad guys here. He also knew the marbles that Ron had given him wouldn't do jack squat against a behemoth this size. And given that he'd just rammed the guy's back at full speed, surrounded by his plasma flame, he didn't really trust using his mutant powers against him, not without going lethal and even then he wasn't sure. Which just left his magic.

'_Great, what spell do I even _know _that can move a mountain of blubber that big?_' Harry thought silently.

Levitation was one option, and they'd practiced with small boulders and furniture in class already. But still, weight was a major concern here. Sparks, repelling charm, hexes, even the transfiguration spells he'd learned, all of it was practically useless in this situation!

But maybe... Maybe a combination. A unique combination. He briefly wondered if Wanda had ever had to do something like this?

_Please Read & Review!_

_AN: Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I'd fully intended to cut this whole fight into segments, I decided to give you a bit more than originally intended. It should be concluded and the kids back at Hogwarts by the end of the next chapter. Again, sorry for the cliffhanger._


	9. Island Assault: Conclusion

_Courtyard_

_Five minutes previous_

Psylocke was kicking herself left and right. Not literally, but she should have known that Magneto was playing possum with her earlier. Now, here she was being held captive by the man, his iron manacles holding her aloft by his power, and adding a human shield to his electromagnetic one.

Captain Britain was trying his hardest, and Banshee was on the verge of screaming himself hoarse, though you certainly wouldn't hear him complaining, and Dazzler was fighting it out with Pyro, long-range style. Not something she specialized in, but it was bringing it back down to a stalemate since Pyro himself couldn't get much closer or do anything except send out jets of flame or control fire-creatures to attack them.

Thing of it was, every time Captain Britain tried to even get close to Magneto, or Pyro for that matter, Psylocke was swung around, via her metallic manacles to be put in his direct path, usually at the very moment he was throwing a punch. Lucky for her, her brother had excellent control over his powers and... well just lucky that he had excellent control period. They'd all tried the taunting game, but Magneto was being tight-lipped and Pyro had his hands full. The few times they'd truly pissed the Master of Magnetism off, instead of ranting, shouting, or preaching at them, he tended to squeeze a few more bands of metal around her and make it hurt.

This could be because of the things said being particularly sensitive for the old man, or it could be that Captain Britain broke his jaw earlier and he literally could not speak at all. It made the battlefield a bit quieter, aside from the explosions, Banshee's screaming, Pyro's flames, and blasts from Dazzler that is. It also drove home just how serious the Brotherhood was about whatever they were doing here.

"What's this all about Magneto?" she screamed at the older mutant behind her. "What's the point in attacking our home like this? You've ignored practically everything in Forge's shop, the genetic information in Moira's lab, everything of known value to your group, and you're passing it up, for what?"

With an audible crack and a muffled grunt of pain, Psylocke winced slightly in sympathy, before Magneto finally answered. "Not that it... is any of your concern... Miss Braddock..." he gasped out, the pain of his just un-dislocated jaw stinging him on every other word, "But we know that... your group encountered... a new type of Sentinel... and copied the plans for it. My intentions are simply to turn the humans' monstrosities back upon them, after a few... upgrades and additions are made of course."

Psylocke's eyes went wide. Human-hunting Sentinels?! The Mutant-hunting ones were bad enough but with giant robots out to kill every human on the planet?

"Magneto, I'm sure you've heard this before, but... YOU'RE INSANE!"

"You're right," he growled at her, "I have heard it before."

With a sneer and a wave of the hand, he sent her flinging directly into her brother, knocking them both away from the battle. "I grow impatient. Mystique, where are you? What is taking so long?" he demanded, speaking into a radio. "Mystique? Respond!"

"Sorry, she can't hear you, she's a bit... tied up at the moment," came a cockney voice over the radio. Magneto immediately recognized it as that mutant secret agent, Pete Wisdom that had been fighting Sabertooth earlier. This was becoming troublesome for the Brotherhood.

Which, of course, is right when things got worse.

From the shadow of the building behind them, a bolt of lightning, complete with ionizing the atmosphere and the deafening crack of thunder, shot out and obliterated every last one of Pyro's flame projections, overwhelming them it seemed before moving through the rest in the same manner. Turning abruptly, all they saw was the shadowed hole in the wall from which the other combatants had disappeared into earlier. Then, without warning, another bold of lightning, just as fast, hot, and loud as the first struck out and went for Pyro himself. The Australian mutant barely had enough time or warning to erect a flame shield around himself. Not that it did him any good as it too was quickly overwhelmed by the bolt. He was knocked out and sent flying back to the opposite wall.

Magneto was under no such illusions and quickly formed his durable electromagnetic forcefield sphere to protect himself. It was just in time too, as a third bolt quickly lashed out and struck dead center, and with enough force that he had to take a step back and levitated himself as a precaution. He wasn't too worried though, as he could handle Storm's worst lightning attacks without even breaking a sweat.

When, instead of another direct bolt, a series of smaller blaster-like bolts shot out and struck at different points along his spherical shield, he allowed himself a moment of surprise and curiosity. When twice as many bolts, of a different shape, continued to stream out from the shadows, each hitting at a different spot with even more force, he grimaced as his shield actually began to buckle. Slightly.

It didn't matter though, as whoever it was these English X-Men Washouts had join them, he or she was clearly an amateur at best. He already had their location and with a minor effort of concentration, started flinging every bit of nearby metal at whoever was in that location.

His surprise grew even more when a blinding flash of light erupted from the shadows, just as concealing as the darkness had been for them, but it was just as clear that the light was merely a side-effect as Magneto _felt_ _it_ as every bit of metal he'd just sent flying had just been vaporized in less than a second. Storm's lightning couldn't do that even if she put everything she had into it. Whoever this was, amateur they may be, was powerful. Very powerful.

Harry was starting to sweat, just a bit. He was grateful more than ever for his 'Study Hall' hours as he doubted that he would have had the endurance to keep this up for as long as he had otherwise. First directing full-power blasts to overwhelm flame-man, or Pyro as Pete had called him, to effectively take him out of the fight. Then, trying to do the same to Magneto.

Harry wasn't as misinformed as one might think. Just because the Dursley's didn't let him watch TV, did not mean he was ignorant of world news. And the mutant terrorist Magneto had most definitely made the news on more than one occasion. Still, he'd stuck to the shadows on the cameras, so neither he nor Hermione had been able to recognize him earlier. He recognized him now though.

For half a second, he almost allowed his fear to overwhelm him, but he was a Gryffindor for crying out loud! The other half of that second had been planning on how to actually win against a mutant so powerful that the whole of the Avengers hadn't been able to subdue him the times they'd been sent after him!

As it was, once he saw that a full powered blast had little to no effect, he started throwing plasma bolts, hoping, praying that he might be able to discover some weakness, as he'd eventually learned about on those shielded targets in his simulations. When arrow-bolts had no effect, he upped the number and changed to twist bolts, quickly probing the entirety of the electromagnetic sphere. Not knowing what else to do, he just tried adding the power and focusing on the 'blind-spots' that he had discovered in his own plasma-based forcefields.

It seemed to have an effect as the man seemed to glare at him and then waved his hand in Harry's general direction. A second later, every scrap of metal that Harry could see around him lifted up and turned their sharp ends toward him and tried to impale him like some kind of killer bludgers. Really not wanting to die, Harry didn't hesitate to bring his plasma flame to full strength, adding a sub-layer of a plasma shield beneath the flames, watching as the pieces of metal skipped the liquid and gas phases and were instantly atomized in his plasma flames, adding fuel to the fire so to speak.

All of this, of course, was by no means effortless. He was gasping for breath and sweating heavily by the time the metal stopped flying at him, but he kept his shield and flame up all the same. He wasn't sure how much longer he could do this, but he wasn't about to give up either!

Nevertheless, Magneto being able to target him, even though he was pretty sure the mutant menace had not seen him, meant that it was past time to change positions and work more on defense. Just like in the sims.

Cutting his plasma flame down so it was no longer a blinding beacon, yet still leaving an inner shield up, Harry flew back into the building and quickly through the hallways to get to a different side of the courtyard. He tried to stay away from windows when he passed by, and keep the light from his flame relatively low, so that by the time he got to the next hole-in-the-wall, he could hide in the shadows once more without anyone, especially Magneto, suspecting anything.

While he'd been flying around, the rest of Excalibur had gotten together and secured Pyro and now all four of them were moving on Magneto, to little if any effect unfortunately. Captain Britain had freed Psylocke from her shackles, and for good measure she'd 'cut' Pyro with her psionic blades to keep him unconscious, while Banshee and Dazzler had gotten back to their feet and were converging on Magneto, doing their best to combine their powers and overwhelm the powerful mutant.

Harry didn't want to give away his position too soon, nor did he want to accidentally hit or injure one of his friends, so he wasn't doing anything for the moment. Problem was, the minute he attacked, he'd have to move to a different location as Magneto would just find him all over again and send a bunch of shrapnel to either keep him busy or maybe even try and kill him. This _was_ an international terrorist here!

Suddenly, he remembered his last few targeting sims in Study Hall. Where he'd actually been able to control the direction of his plasma bolts, and after a lot of concentration, he even got a couple of them to stay stationary and _then _fire, like a kind of delayed trigger sort of thing. Of course having a bunch of plasma bolts shoot out of the same hole in the wall would be the same as shooting out a full powered blast from the same spot, so... Wait a minute... That's IT!

Taking several deep, filling breaths, Harry began to concentrate. His plasma flame ignited and then, the same as when he was simultaneously hitting multiple targets, numerous bolts began to shoot out of the flame. Only they weren't heading in the same direction.

Some went down the left hallway, some went down the right, others diverged further, as Harry maintained his concentration and used his memory of the layout of the center to feel out where he should move the bolts. Once he 'felt' that enough bolts were at the correct positions, he _stopped_ them and had them hold still in midair. Taking a _very quick_ look at the battlefield, he saw an opportunity come up and confirmed that all of the plasma bolts were really in position.

The moment that Magneto knocked all of his opponents away with an electromagnetic surge, before they even landed, Harry attacked, releasing every single plasma bolt he'd put on a trigger, as well as a few extra twist-bolts sent up into the air and then directed downwards. As a final volley, Harry waited until the bolts were a bare second away from hitting and then struck with a Heavy Beam, putting as much power as he possibly could into it, making it fast enough to strike at that same moment as the bolts and with enough force that Magneto, even behind his own forcefield, was knocked back and sent careening to the ground.

"Ahhhh!" the Master of Magnetism cried as his protection was forcibly removed.

"Harry?" Brian whispered to himself, already back to his feet from Magneto's earlier attack. He briefly looked back at where the majority of the attacks had come from, but he saw nothing and no one. Not willing to distract himself, and trusting that his protegé and friend would know when to keep his head down. Not that he didn't appreciate the help of course.

Flying in above his enemy, taking care to avoid any clear shots of any pieces of metal, Captain Britain sought to finally end the confrontation, only for it to be proven once again that Magneto was by no means a soft opponent. At the last second, he raised his hand up at Captain Britain and like anybody else would catch a softball, stopped him in mid-air. He used his powers of magnetism in an incredible subtle way, by focusing on the single pieces of iron and metal that was placed on his foe's body. A belt buckle, boot straps, even the minute traces of iron in his blood. It was a tenuous grasp at best, but it was enough for Magneto to throw the flying man off course and give him enough room to regain his composure.

"I do believe we have worn out our welcome," the leader of the Brotherhood growled. "Pyro! Sabertooth! Mystique! Toad! Blob! We're leaving! NOW!"

Unfortunately, it would seem that in his dealings with various underworld figures, Magneto had done more than just get an impressive rep as an international terrorist. He also, apparently, had invested in either teleporter technology, or had recruited someone that could pull of long range teleportation without being on site. Even those that had been tied up were grabbed up and whisked away in a vanishing flash of energy.

"Well... that was anticlimactic," Banshee muttered.

_Muir Island_

_Conference Room_

_Couple of hours later_

"Sorry about the trouble on your first visit to the island, kids," Brian apologized yet again to the Hogwarts students, even as they were helping in straightening up the damage the attack by the Brotherhood had caused. "We don't exactly schedule these things, but most often, it's rather peaceful around here."

"Danger Room sessions aside, you mean?" Harry joked with the older superhero.

"Uh... yeah," Brian sheepishly scratched the back of his neck.

"So what were they after?" Hermione asked. "Those... people? I mean, they were hardly here for the sole purpose of fighting you and causing damage. They were looking for something. What?"

"That's a good question," Brian turned to Forge and crossed his arms, intimidatingly. "And the moment they appeared, you disappeared with Moira. Something we should know about?"

"Do you realize, how much of a recruiting poster you look like right now?" Forge retorted.

Captain Britain, still in uniform, had the decency to blush, but he didn't back down either.

Sighing, Forge walked over to one of the computers and pulled up something on the holographic display for everyone to see. "I do a lot of government contract work. I also do even more private work to keep the lights of this place turned on and running, among other things. Security systems. Weapon systems. Even simple things like revolutionary new medical and scanning equipment."

"Magneto mentioned the plans for a new kind of Sentinel?" Psylocke ruthlessly questioned.

The way everyone, even Harry, tensed and glared at the tech mutant in horror and distrust told the two visiting wizards that whatever it was, a Sentinel was _not_ a good thing.

Forge, however, didn't even register the glares, as he'd gone dangerously pale and looked even more horror-stricken than the rest of them were. Finally, he did notice the glares and quickly explained himself.

"Those plans were hacked from the SHIELD database by Shadowcat a month ago. I've been analyzing them with Beast, and a couple of other colleagues. To see if we could identify exploitable weaknesses, as well as develop counter-measures. One of our... colleagues hypothesized about what would happen if someone simply switched out the CPU from the design and put in one that was designed around targeting ordinary humans instead of mutants. None of us thought of it as funny, and the plans themselves never left the island. Saved to a disk and kept in the safe, no copies ever made."

"So," Pete Wisdom spoke up, "who is this... colleague of yours?"

Forge hesitated, but finally sighed and nodded. "Tony Stark."

"The multi-millionaire, business tycoon, former weapons-designer, now philanthropist high-end-technology manufacturer Tony Stark? _That_ Tony Stark?!" Hermione blurted out, her eyes wide.

"Uh, yeah," Forge shrugged, apparently not having expected a reaction like that.

"Isn't he that guy that keeps getting accused of being his own bodyguard, Ironman?" Harry asked.

Several snickers behind barely covered mouths was his reply, raising an eyebrow on the young mutant's brow. Finally, somebody asked the big question that they were all avoiding.

"So, why would this Stork..."

"STARK! Tony STARK!" Hermione shouted the correction.

"Right, whatever, Stark, Stork, same difference," Ron scoffed. "Why would he let any of the guys that just attacked us, know about these plans that are only on a single disk in a safe that nobody should even know exists? I mean, from what everybody here knows about him, it doesn't sound like he'd do that normally, right?"

"Except that," Kitty interrupted, actually raising her hand to get everyone's attention, "Two days ago, Stark Security reported that they'd discovered an illegal hack on several of their secure communication servers. I know, because I had to rewrite a bunch of my own backdoors when they ran the sweeps. It's not too hard to imagine that Magneto either had someone listening in, or whoever it really was that got caught, sold the information he'd been picking up, and..."

"And if the discussions Tony, Reed, Beast and I had about the Sentinel schematics was part of what was hacked or copied before it was caught..." Forge trailed off and started slamming his head on the table. "Stupid, stupid, stupid! Should have just deleted them outright!"

"Still can, can't we?" Psylocke asked.

"Think that would stop Magneto?" Banshee asked back.

"He's right," Forge told them. "We didn't create these plans ourselves. Wolverine actually showed up with them after one of his... walkabouts, dropped them off in SHIELD's care, and who knows where he got them from originally. Kitty downloaded them after her last hack of the SHIELD database using Cerebro and they had been kept with Beast originally. Last time he was out, he dropped them off here with me because our safe was more secure. We only brought Reed and Tony in on it a few weeks ago, and _only_ to discuss countermeasure options."

"Which seems to have suddenly taken a whole new leap forward in importance," Pete pointed out.

"No kidding," Psylocke remarked.

Suddenly, Forge turned to Harry, "Oh, Harry! I'm sorry, I just remembered. I promised you that new security system for that artifact at your school. Look, I can..."

"No, no it's all right," Harry waved the man's excuses aside. "This is a lot more important. Besides, the teachers are all now aware of just how light the current defenses were. I think it will take them some time before they have everything back up anyway. I understand, and besides, the Stone's been safe for this long, what's a little longer? Just so long as nobody steals it in the end, right?"

Forge sighed, clearly doing some heavy thinking. "OK, this kind of does have to take priority for a while. Still, I'll definitely have something for you by Christmas, without fail."

Harry shrugged. "That's plenty of time. Like I said, Forge, no rush. Just wanted to help out Professor Dumbledore, given what all he does for the world. Being on the ICW that is."

"Speaking of helping out," Brian walked over and clapped Harry on the back, "Nice job today, Harry. I'm not sure what all would have happened today if Magneto had actually gotten a hold of those plans..."

Harry just shrugged, blushing a bit under the praise. "I just did what I could. Not like I did anything special. And Ron and Hermione helped me out plenty! Ron gave me those marbles that we used to tie up Sabertooth, Toad, and Mystique. Hermione navigated me through the halls, avoiding being seen where she could. I probably would've been caught or blindsided right off the bat if it weren't for them."

Now, Harry wasn't the only one blushing from praise.

"It's not like we really did anything," Hermione argued, "We just helped you out, Harry. You're the real hero that went out and did everything. We just hid in a closet somewhere, not doing anything."

"That's not true," Brian interrupted, surprising the young spell casters. "Quite often, it's the support people that make the ultimate difference. Yeah, the heroes, like all of us, are out there in the thick of it, using our powers and having incredible fights... but we'd be a lot worse off if it weren't for those that were there to help us out when we needed it. Like you were there for Harry."

"Brian's right," Psylocke added. "Harry might have saved our bacon by distracting Magneto and taking the rest of the Brotherhood out with surprise attacks. I'd be willing to bet though, that he wouldn't have been able to pull off those surprise attacks if it weren't for Ron's gadgets that he gave up, or Hermione giving Harry instructions on where to go and what to avoid. Am I right?"

The three young magic users could only blush in reply, Ron looking the shade of a tomato by this point, while Hermione looked down at her feet and struggled not to start giggling. Harry just scratched the back of his neck and tried to look modest.

"Well, enough a that," Moira brought them all back down to Earth. "Time ye kids got back te school, eh? Not te worry. We'll handle the clean up. Ye just get back on te school now. Got that... Portkey thing Dumbledore should've given ye?"

The three of them held up the Portkey and nodded. With a final round of goodbyes, they stood around the Portkey, held onto it, then Ron activated it with a word as they disappeared with a resounding crack of displaced air.

"Now why can't _you_ disappear like that?" Jamie asked Nightcrawler. The only response he got was a tossed piece of debris and a 'Bamf' right in the face.

_Hogwarts_

_Gryffindor common room_

_Monday_

Ron Weasley was sitting alone in one of the corners of the common room that afternoon after classes had let out, working on several different things, most of them essays, but also the ever ongoing astronomy project of mapping out the positions of the stars and constellations of the heavens. It was a bit of a break from the norm, as it was very rare that Ron, Harry, and Hermione were ever seen separate from each other. Especially when studying or doing homework.

However, today, Harry was in his "Study Hall" and Hermione had been drafted by Professor McGonagall for some extra credit project, leaving the youngest Weasley son at Hogwarts to do his homework alone for once. Once upon a time, he might have skivvied off and done anything else, like play chess or some other wizard game. Then, Harry took him and Hermione down the Forbidden Third Floor Corridor, followed by taking them to an island where a team of superheroes live, and were witness to a siege by a group of mutant terrorists that were well capable of killing every single one of them, him, Hermione, and Harry especially.

Ron had grown up knowing the world was not always going to be a nice place. His parents and older brothers were superheroes for crying out loud! There had been the occasional villain, magical or otherwise, that had nearly gotten the best of them, and there were nights when Ron worried if he'd ever see any of his family again. But, at the same time, he still viewed the world through the eyes of a child.

His parents and brothers _did_ always come home, the bad guys _were_ always thwarted, and the good guys, right, justice, and truth won in the end. Logically, he knew the truth that the world was a cold, hard, gray place, not black and white or filled with colorful happy endings you read about in fairy tales. Still, his heart continued to believe in the childhood dream.

Then Harry almost got himself killed and all he could do was watch it on a monitor with Hermione while they cowered away in a security room. Ron Weasley would not let that happen again. He could not afford to risk losing his friends, not if there was anything he could do about that.

Which, unfortunately, meant studying, training, learning, and doing homework.

It also meant a couple of other things here and there, not the least of which was when last night, after getting back from Muir Island, he'd approached his brothers, the Twins, Fred and George and asked them to arm him up. Well, that really meant he begged and pleaded with them to give him their full bag of crime-fighting tricks and teach him to use everything and then some. They had him actually begging on bended knees at one point, but unfortunately their teasing natures took so much time that Percy had finished his rounds and was walking past and heard enough to get the idea, and he made them all promise that in addition to the Twin Devils teaching their youngest brother how to use all their tricks that Hermes would also be training young Ronald in how to best defend himself when divested of his weapons and wand.

Basically translated; in the evenings before dinner, and after class, for about three to four hours straight, Percy would super speed Ron away to a specialized training area set aside just outside the Forbidden Forest, yet still hidden from view, where the Twin Devils (or clones, nobody can ever tell) were already waiting and then proceeded in running Ron through the Weasley wringer. Sometimes, and they admitted this, they came up with new trinkets and tricks made just for Ron all so they could spend a few more hours a week grilling their brother in how to use it.

Of course, all that came later, as this being Monday, it was his first day of training.

Unsure if it was a coincidence or not, Ron had just finished the last of his homework and put it all away in his bag at the exact same moment the Twins came and plopped down beside him, on both sides.

"So, brother dear," Fred began.

"Ready to make good on your promise?" George asked.

"Yeah," was all Ron said, getting to his feet.

"Good," George broke out into a wide grin.

"We'll be waiting," Fred added.

"Percy is waiting in the Main Hall." George said.

"Best not to keep him waiting," Fred said.

"You know how our dear brother..." George started.

"... hates to wait around," Fred finished.

"Thanks," the youngest redhead nodded, before racing out and making his way to the Main Hall.

When he got there, he saw Percy standing there by the door, but thankfully no other students were in the immediate area at the moment. When he saw his younger brother, Percy perked up and waved his hand. Ron quickly ran over.

"Ah, Ronald, excellent timing. I only got here a moment or two ago myself. Now then," he looked the younger wizard up and down, "ready to go are we?" Ron simply nodded his head in the affirmative, and then Percy grabbed him under his shoulders and they were off!

And then they stopped. Ron stumbled a bit when his brother let him go, a bit disoriented. He had some sensation of movement and he felt like he'd just gotten off a high speed broom without bothering to brake before landing. Nevertheless, it happened so quickly that he consciously registered only that one second he was in the Main Hall and Percy was grabbing him, and the second after that, he was stumbling in the middle of a warded clearing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest.

Once his equilibrium was restored, Ron took a moment to look around and see the place where they would be training him. It really wasn't that impressive. Trees on all sides, except for the fifty-by-fifty square meter circular pasture that had tall grass and a few wild flowers, but surprisingly no trees. A few rocks, boulders really were in the exact middle of the clearing and only stood about four and a half feet above ground, no wider than the Weasley's kitchen table back at the Burrow.

Beyond the scenery, Ron soon noticed he was not exactly alone in the clearing. For one thing, Percy was gone, and there were a lot more people than two or three. He did, however, easily recognize all of them.

Standing not too far from him was the Wizard Wonders superhero known to the Wizarding World, and Britain exclusively, as _Hermes, the Fastest Wizard Alive_. They hadn't actually raced, but rumor had it that Hermes was just as, if not actually faster than the mutant superhero _Quicksilver_. It was only a rumor though.

The rest of the clearing was occupied by identical copies of the same individual. Or, at least the same two individuals. The Twin Devils were magical mischief makers that had the power to duplicate themselves to near infinity, allowing them to quickly overwhelm their enemies, and it didn't help that they fought dirty and tended to lean more towards prank-like behavior than sticking to the letter of the law about taking in criminals. As such, criminals were _more_ afraid of the Twin Devils than they ever were of the Aurors, Azkaban, or even Dementors. Because if the Twin Devils found out you were a criminal and were actually guilty of the crime, they would find you, and you would _never_ be safe, no matter what!

Even in Azkaban Prison, and nobody was sure how they did it, the pranks would continue to plague those the Twin Devils targeted. Thankfully, the pranks never became lethal, but were a severe hindrance and in some cases a lethal trap would be preferable to what some of the things the Twin Devils have done over the two years since they took up their superhero mantle.

The costumes, Ron knew, were all crafted and made by their mother, that is after she knew and finally accepted that the family was going into the superhero business. Hermes, inspired almost solely by the Greek God of Travelers and Messenger of the Gods of Olympus, wore a primarily red, gold, and a touch of blue to his colors. He wore a full helmet, painted mostly red, but with a wing-swept design coming off it on either side of his head. The visor itself was metallic gold in color, but really Ron knew the entire helmet was something their father designed. In addition to protecting Percy from wind sheer, it contained a full communication system, from radio, to everything muggles used and even the Wizard Wireless. It also contained something that his father called a... what was it? Oh yeah! An H.U.D. which would display visual information to Percy just by him thinking about it!

The rest of the costume was primarily red, especially the shirt and gloves, though it was made out of a specially made and enchanted material that their father had, again, created on his own and then turned it over to his wife, who fashioned the material for Percy to wear. In the center of his chest was the gold-emblazoned symbol for the Greek God Hermes, along with a few strips here and there for aesthetic value. The pants, in a change from what was, were a solid Ravenclaw blue, cut off with the dirtied, but sturdy red boots, each bearing wing-like protrusions colored the same metallic gold as his visor.

The boots were a bit of a play off the myth that Hermes could move so fast thanks to his winged sandals.

The Twin Devils, however, were vastly different in appearance to their older brother.

They all wore the same costume, really the only way to tell Fred from George was that Fred liked to deliver one-liners, while George _loved_ being the one to set a prank off on somebody not expecting it. Other than that, they were identical in nearly every way.

The primary colors used were Gryffindor-inspired, of course, red and gold. Most of the costume was solid red, in fact the only gold parts were the arm sleeves and a few trimmings here and there, with the main body, gloves, boots, and mask all being the same red. Of course, given their name, the mask itself was a parody of a devil mask, except that the eyes were mirrored and at some point the Twins learned how to cast a glamour that made them flash and glow occasionally. Their chins and mouths were left uncovered, though the mask framed it as though fangs extended over the exposed skin, which under the right conditions made criminals think they had two mouths; a human mouth inside of a demon's maw.

Thankfully, they did not go overboard on the horns, in fact making them little more than small spikes coming straight out of their foreheads. The main body of the costume was more like some kind of vested tunic, except that it was skintight, and hand very big and pointed shoulder pads. Which brings up the other way to tell them apart; they each bore a pitchfork on their chest, but Molly Weasley designed the costumes so that one Twin would have the pitchfork on his left side, and the other would have it on his right side. This change continued on into their clones, so you could at least tell that much.

The boots weren't that special, just the same as Hermes' red boots. The belts, however, that's where the Twin Devils got their tricks, pranks, and most of their fighting power. Their parents had nothing to do with those belts, that was all Fred and George.

It was hypothesized that each made their own belt unique and it was yet another way to tell them apart, but it was such a mishmash of components, carriers, gadgets, gizmos, and other things that unless they were standing side-by-side and allowed you the time to inspect it, it would be impossible to identify the difference on sight. Ron had seen some crazy things come from those belts. Grappling hooks, rope-binding marbles, and a roll of enchanted stickers not even the beginning of it all!

After allowing Ron time to gather himself, the Twin Devils, all thirty of them, grinned maliciously, right before 28 of them disappeared in a poof of magic smoke, leaving only Ron and his three older brothers. Or two clones of his older brothers, it was just as impossible to tell the difference from clone to original as it was to tell Fred from George or vice versa.

"You ready for this, Ronniekins?" the left Twin Devil asked. Sounded like Fred.

"We get you first," the right Twin Devil picked up the speech.

"Then Hermes over there gets you tomorrow," the first one finished.

"Course all he'll be teaching you is how to dodge and silly stuff like that."

"Not that it's really all that silly."

"Just the way he does it."

"It _looks_ really silly."

"Unless you're actually dodging stuff, that is."

"Too true, my compatriot."

"Thank you, comrade."

"GUYS!" Ron interrupted. "If you would please, can we get on with this!"

"Right," Left said. "First up, you know the easy stuff, the toys we used to play around with back when it was just petty thieves and pickpockets, that sort of stuff."

"Insta-Spell Stickers, bind-n-catches, halo-cuffs, the Go-Go-Yo-Yo, the Gardna Shield..." Right said.

"Things like that," the first one concluded.

"Thing is, all that is last year's models."

"We've come up with things _so_ much better, it'll knock your socks off!"

"Ooo, that's a good one, we should come up with something that'll actually do that!" he said to the other.

"Or even better, will blast _all_ their clothes off! Brilliant!"

"Wicked Brilliant!"

"Probably shouldn't use it on any witches though..."

"Ah, yes, good point there."

"Erhrm!" Ron coughed subtly.

"Right then. First up, standard gear. Stuff we've found we use a lot more than anything else."

"Pranks are one thing, but each one _does_ have to be specialized."

"Can't be repeating ourselves, we have our reputations to uphold."

"But in the heat of it, we still find ourselves using some gear more than others. This is what we'll be showing, supplying, and training you to use, Ron."

"And as much as we love joking around and playing the pranksters..."

"We know it's only a matter of time before you're joining us out there, fighting the bad guys and putting yourself in danger..."

"All to save the innocent people of Britain and the magical world. So..."

"We're not about to risk losing our brother..."

"Any of our brothers."

"... due to improper lessons or a lack of equipment understanding. Therefore..."

"We will run you like a ragged dog until you know this stuff better than we do. No joking around once training begins. We have two sides, you see, Ron. One side..."

"Our fun-loving, pranking in good humor, lovable brothers, one with the brains for transfiguration and potions..."

"The other with talent for charms and runes. On the other side..."

"We didn't choose our name, Twin _Devils_ by chance, you understand. Our victims chose it for us."

"And during training, you'll be meeting our Devil side, Ron."

"First up; the _Millennium Shield_."

_The Next Day_

Ron couldn't believe it. Percy, he could see running him ragged and making him work three times as hard for every scrap of knowledge he got out of his conceited brother. But the _Twins_?! They were supposed to be the fun, easy going brothers, and explain how to use their gadgets with jokes and dirty puns. Ultimately, it turned out the Twins were making him study like it's for the Final Exams, while _Percy_ is having him go over the _BASICS_!

"Good Ron, good!" the red haired Prefect complimented him. "Now just try locking your wrists in place after completing the motions, and maintain your stance and your balance. Excellent!"

"Percy," Ron growled out. "How long are you going to make me do this? This is the basic stuff! I've done the basic stuff since I was four years old when Bill taught all of us. And despite what it looks like, pretty much every night that everybody went on patrol, me and Ginny were practicing this nonstop! At the very least if you're going to help me get into shape, couldn't it be like running or new kinds of exercise to increase my stamina or something like that?"

"Ron?" Percy stood in front of his younger brother with that 'I know I'm smarter than you' smirk of his that almost always preempted a prank by the Twins when he gave it to them. "Please understand that the following is entirely rhetorical. But have you ever been in a fight? I mean, _ever_?!"

Ron backpedaled a step at Percy's sudden vehemence.

"Yes, I am sure that you do practice these same basics every night, and that is good! But sloppy basics are not going to keep you from getting killed in a fight! Yes, _killed_! Or nearly as bad! Until you can do all of those blocks _perfectly_ in your _sleep_, they will do you little good so long as you have to think about what you're doing when blocking! It should be done instantly and instinctively, otherwise it's no good at all! And don't even _think_ of throwing the first punch, or any punches at all! Heroes do not throw the first punch."

"Believe me, I know that," Ron grumbled. "But what good is this... instant instinct you're talking about if the only thing I do is practice blocking?"

"Work on your balance. Build up your strength. Run and do weight training on your own time," Percy told him. "The Twins and I are here only because you begged us for training. Well, you begged the Twins to teach you and supply you with their gadgets, but I'm here to round out your training."

"When am I supposed to have time to run and do weight training?" Ron exclaimed. "You guys are taking me from the castle the moment I finish the day's homework, and then it's dinner time and then it's back to the dorms for curfew!"

"I run at least 500 miles every morning, and do morning calisthenics on the way back to the castle."

"That's because London and Diagon Alley are over 250 miles away!" the younger brother growled.

"Before and after breakfast, but before classes begin, you have at least an hour both ways," Percy explained. "You figure it out. I'm here simply to instruct you in how to survive a melee experience when your gadgets and toys fail you. And they will. One day, they will. It's happened to father, the Twins, all of us have at some point had to resort to melee fighting. Often at the most inopportune times. So, practice. And remember to lock your wrists in place as you complete the motions."

Still grumbling, Ron assumed a balanced stance and then began practicing his blocks once more. Only to blink and see Percy standing in front of him. And he was throwing a punch at his face! His mind went blank and then his body just _moved_ all on it's own it seemed, coming up in a forward block. He did remember to lock his wrist and it made all the difference he peripherally realized, allowing him to fully divert the blow.

Fast as ever, Percy then tried to punch his chest. His other arm shot out in a side-swiping block, knocking the incoming fist away. Unfortunately, he did not lock his wrist and winced at the pain when his hand moved on past the motion, straining the muscles in his hand and wrist.

Another punch came in, at his head this time, freeing up his first hand. His brain was just starting to catch up, but thankfully his body was still moving on autopilot it seemed as his freed hand went up into a high block, and he made sure to follow his brother's advice this time. Percy fell back a step and tried to do a close body kick, and yet again his arms and hands moved before he was consciously aware of how to move, and stopped and pushed away the attacking legs each time it came up.

Then it all started all over again as Percy started punching and kicking at him almost all over the place. After a minute, Ron finally caught on to what was happening here, and he was grateful. Pretty soon, Ron was blocking all kinds of punches and kicks, all with the basic blocks that Percy had been drilling him on for the past hour or two.

Which, of course is also around the time that Percy began to pick up the pace just a bit. Pretty soon, the punches were actually landing, but his older brother did not let up. Something, at least, that he was grateful for was that Percy was pulling his punches by a considerable degree. They still landed and no matter what, they hurt, but at least they would not leave any marks or bruising.

Didn't stop him from going faster though.

Finally, after the three hours were up and it was time to go back to the castle, Ron was feeling every blow and was heavily sweating and panting. Percy, of course, looked as fresh as a daisy.

"Good, very good," the Prefect complimented him once more. "Tomorrow we'll work on dodging and avoiding blows. Hm, perhaps reiterating Bill's method of taking a fall, combined with the preliminary basics of Aikido? Yes, Aikido would suit you well Ron. At least until you grow out of this awkward stage."

"Awk-awk-awkward stage?" Ron panted on the ground. "Wh-what's that s... supposed to mean?"

"Don't worry about it, we all went through it," Percy assured him.

"You mean when you guys were waiting for your powers to show up?"

"That too. Until you do know what your powers are, or if you're getting them at all, Aikido should be able to help you out in any fights you'll be getting into. Not that you should be getting into fights. Now come on, we're going to be late for dinner if we don't get you back to the dorms in time to clean up." With that, they were off before Ron could even finish getting his breath back under control.

_Later That Month_

Ron had been under his new schedule for several days now and against his better judgment, he had also taken Percy's advice and started waking up at least an hour before breakfast and went running around the lake, or when Harry woke up at the same time, they went to "Study Hall" and ran around the holographic track and did weights and calisthenics. Then Breakfast, some extra exercise by racing up and down the stairs before taking a quick shower before classes.

Classes were the same as ever, except increasing in difficulty as more material was covered. Then Lunch with an occasional free period thrown in, which Harry, Hermione, and Ron used to go to the old dueling hall and used Harry's PDR to it's maximum potential. Then, afternoon classes, and immediately following the last class, all three of them were in the Common Room working on the day's homework and whatever studying needed to be done.

The moment he dotted his last 'i' and crossed his last 't', Percy and the Twins showed up and dragged Ron off for his training. Harry went back to his Study Hall, and Hermione spent that same time in the Library, doing extra studying of her own. At Dinner they reunited and talked about their day, or complained about it in Harry and Ron's cases, and discussed the various things they had learned.

Harry was increasingly vague about his mutant powers, glossing over "Study Hall" like it wasn't even worth mentioning. Ron, likewise, was being rather closemouthed about his new training regimen and tight-lipped about his family, aside from the occasional slip. He was still afraid that if he ever did start talking about his family to his two friends that he would eventually slip and blurt out the biggest secret of his whole life; that his entire family were wizard superheroes!

Hermione, of course, could hardly shut up about all that she was learning. She often went on for the whole of Dinner about a certain spell that she had either heard about, read about, seen, or had been discussed in class and she'd gone to research it in the Library later on. It was like eating next to a talking encyclopedia some nights, but as much as the boys preferred active learning to passive, listening to Hermione and how passionate she could become about learning magic was surprisingly fun all the same. Especially when she brought forth the topics of spells that both of them might want to try out themselves.

Needless to say, the new friendship, while not exactly spending all their time together, was slowly blossoming and strengthening its roots quite well. Ron, while still plagued with occasional impatience, began to feel that his training was making some, albeit minor, progress and began dealing with everything with a much cooler head than before. Especially as he came to the realization that despite not having his powers yet, at the rate he was going, he would probably be able to join his family in their superheroing endeavors before he even got his powers!

Anyway, it was Friday, the day before the weekend, and it was also a 'Devil Day' as the Twins liked to call it. Right then, Ron was getting drilled in all of the gadgets the Twins had given him thus far, explaining to them, in detail, what it was called, what it did, how it operated, and a few off-the-top-of-his-head examples of circumstances in which they should be used and how. Ron could only hope that the real final exams at the end of the year weren't as tough as all this.

"Not bad Ronniekins, not bad," Twin Devil 1 commented.

"Not bad at all to be perfectly honest about it," Twin Devil 2 added.

"But 'not bad' is not good."

"Not to say you aren't good at all, but at least you're not bad."

"That's true."

"Well, what do you expect?" Ron exclaimed at them. "Yes, yes, yes, I _asked_ you to help me out and load me up with all this stuff, but do you honestly expect me to believe that you had all of this stuff, built, learned and memorized by the time you were my age?"

"Of course not!"

"Don't be silly!"

"We had five times as many gadgets back then and even now we're planning on upgrading all of this stuff with newer models before the end of the month," the first Devil admitted.

"Not to mention that we're planning and testing out another dozen or so more tools to work with," the second added.

"Then you also have to consider the specialized resources used in our... pranks."

Ron blinked, staring at his older brothers in something akin to awe. It was quite a revelation for him, to learn how his fun-loving, annoying, trouble-making older brothers that he used to look to as the slackers of the family... were actually the hidden geniuses that were at least as smart as his Dad, whose superpower was increased brainpower that allowed him to analyze, comprehend, and invent technology, spells, and combinations of both that were advanced beyond belief. IF not smarter!

It kind of put things in perspective for Ron, the next-to-last baby of the family.

"How much of this has been a prank to see when I'd finally crack and start acting like a spoiled Slytherin again?" he finally asked them with a serious tone.

"The first day," the Twins said in unison.

"And by now? I mean, now that I understand how serious this all is, and what you mean by it all."

"Now?" Twin Devil 1 grinned wide.

"Now comes the practical," Twin Devil 2 gave him a sharks tooth grin, right before they both jumped back and reached for their belts.

Startled, Ron went with the instincts Percy's training had been pounding into him for the past few days, and he rolled back while palming a NSV smoke pellet while reaching for the Millennium Shield at the same time. He did not, however, immediately pull out the magically-created shield, waiting until he saw whatever the Twin Devils would throw at him.

Turns out that was a good thing, as the first thing the both of them pulled out was the Tag'em Guns. Pistols that shot out every known binding spell taught at Hogwarts. Even the NEWT level spells. If he'd tried to defend with a shield, he would have just been a bigger mummy afterward. Thankfully, for Ron anyway, he threw down the smoke pellet first and quickly dodged, rolling to the side and diving back out of range.

The NSV smoke pellet is basically just that, a smoke pellet. The NSV stands for Null Spell Void, as the properties of the smoke released pretty much nullify any and all spells cast by a wand for about a 5 to 10 foot radius from the point of dispersal. Sort of a double-edged sword for most wizards, except that Ron didn't know enough magic to do anything beyond floating stuff and turning wood to metal and vice versa.

The one fault the NSV can't cover, however, is that the magic innate or placed into objects are unaffected, so if the Devils threw in an enchanted object that could do as much damage as their spell-casting tools, then he was still in trouble. Keeping one hand on, but still not drawing the Millennium Shield, Ron cast out another half dozen NSV smoke pellets, scattering them over the clearing, a couple tossing in the air before breaking them with the Slingshot. Which, of course is exactly what it sounds like, with the only magic on it being that the band never breaks, and if you pull it back without putting a pellet in it first, a small stone is automatically conjured and put into the sling, giving it, more or less, unlimited ammunition.

"Clever Ronniekins!" a voice called out from the haze.

"Very clever," came another from a different direction.

"We can see you, you know."

"Hiding isn't the point," Ron told them. Then he pulled out Polo whip. Normally it might be called a bolo whip, but there was a very good reason for the name. "MARCO!" he cried, flinging the whip forward into the smoke, keeping a grip on the handle as the whip flew out.

"Bugger!" a voice cried out, only to be immediately silenced as Ron felt the whip strike the speaker. Immediately he tugged back on it and the whip instantly retracted.

"Ah, we see now little brother. This smoke won't last forever though."

"Only for about five more minutes, not counting the pellets that you two managed to stop from exploding," Ron replied, running forward a bit before throwing the whip out again, "MARCO!"

Silence. Until some footsteps sounded off in the distance. Ron felt the whip tracking the sound, but he pulled it back instead, knowing the tactic the Devils were turning on him. Seeing that the Polo whip was no longer effective at the moment, he put it back until he might need it again, and pulled out another little toy. The Eagle Pen, as his brothers called it, was a simple eagle tail feather quill... that could turn into an English short sword. He wasn't sure why they called it a _pen_ though...

"Now what good do you think that will do?" a voice that sounded like it was right behind him asked.

He didn't turn around though, knowing the trick they were using on him. He still didn't draw the Millennium Shield, but instead used his hand to draw out what looked like a shrunken conch shell on a small chain necklace. He slipped it around his neck, the small conch resting tightly around his throat.

"Well, for starters, boys, it'll help me deflect what you're about to throw at me. You two prefer to work mid to long range, only getting close when it's personal, a prank, or you're overconfident. And after what you two did to my teddy bear, I don't think you're going to be overconfident with me, are you?" he asked, knowing his own voice was playing the same tricks with his opponents, confusing where exactly he was or where his voice was coming from.

"You just had to bring that up, didn't you?"

"Nice try, by the way. We do have the counter-charms that negate the Confunding Conch, you know that, right?"

"Yes, but it takes you a minute to cast them, and if you already had them in place, or another trick on your belts to do it, you wouldn't have started playing the game," he countered.

"Still thinking like an amateur, Ron?" The voice had come from almost directly ahead.

Ron silently, or as silently as he could, ran through the smoke until he saw a shadow appear amidst the dispersing vapors. Palming a bind-n-catch, he ran straight at it, and then spun around and threw it behind him, catching a surprised Devil in the chest and instantly wrapping the body up. The Devil smirked, and then vanished with a small puff of smoke.

"Great," he growled out, pulling out an egg shaped gray metal ball. The Twins called it a flashbang, and warned him to never use it when it was close to him or unless there was a barrier between him and it.

"That won't be of much help either," a voice called out. The smoke was almost gone now, Ron could see the trees and the sky again.

"Sure it will. It's a distraction," said Ron as he pulled the pin and dropped the thing at his feet.

"IDIOT!" twin voices rang out only a moment before there was an explosion at their brother's feet.

An explosion that he neither saw nor heard, as at the last second, a heartbeat before the flashbang touched the ground, he'd put away the Eagle Pen and pulled out the Polo whip. It shot out towards the voices, actually splitting in two, and while it did that, Ron activated the stickers he'd put on the bottom of his shoes earlier, before even leaving the castle. The spells on the stickers were for _Depulso_ and _Spongify_, the first to send him flying into the air via an explosion from his feet to the ground, the later to make the ground rubbery, and to ensure that he didn't break his legs in the attempt.

It all happened in the blink of an eye and the flashbang covered up the simultaneous explosion that came from the bottom of his feet, and thankfully he'd already put in earplugs and was looking at the sky in anticipation of the dual explosions, so he was minimally affected if at all.

While he was in the air, the last of the smoke cleared and Ron had a full view of the entire clearing. Therefore, he got to see that his brothers had made about ten clones while they sat off on the sidelines. Out of costume, meaning they were both in their school robes and to add to it, they both sat at a judge's booth!

When they saw him flying above the proceedings, they just smiled and waved, which frayed at Ron's waning patience, and drew attention to the fact that he was currently falling to the ground at a high rate of speed. The stickers on his feet expired, he couldn't count on a soft landing, so, he pulled out the one trick that he had questioned if he would ever need or find a use for. Oh, the irony.

Throwing the cube-shaped trick down in front of him, where he was about to land, he only had enough time to squint after that. Right before he was about to meet a messy end though, a four poster bed made up in white linens and a thick cotton comforter appeared and caught him just in time. Groaning as he rolled himself out of the sheets and back onto the forest floor, he growled to himself, "Never questioning their inventions. Ever. Again."

Once he was back on his feet however, he saw that the clones were all circling in closer, having either been unaffected, or overcoming the effects of the explosions. Then he saw a couple of them stumbling about and a few were walking very slowly, and on a course that would take them several meters to his left or right, and he knew that the flashbang had indeed been effective.

That's when he pulled the Millennium Shield.

"OK, that's enough! Good show everyone, you're dismissed!" Fred stood up suddenly and all the clones disappeared in puffs of smoke.

"We're not about to let you unleash that thing on our helpless clones, brother-dear," George explained to a very confused Ron. "Put it away for right now. Besides, didn't we already explain that the only thing that can match a _Millennium_ item is _another_ Millennium item? Not exactly fair, or a real test, now is it?"

"Well how am I supposed to get experience in using this thing then?" Ron asked, even as he put the Millennium Shield away.

"It's a shield," said George. "There's not exactly a lot of technique required in its use. Only offensive thing you can really do with it is bash and shoulder-rush the bad guys, but other than that it's only use is to defend. Why didn't you pull it from the start?"

"Cause that would've been stupid," Ron replied.

"How do you figure that?" Fred asked back.

"Well, you guys only just admitted that you've got hundreds more gadgets and tricks up your sleeves so for all I knew, once you saw me using the Shield, you'd pull out the one gadget that could get past it. Good thing I didn't too, as those clones of yours used the Tag'em Guns right off the bat and I would've been a gift-wrapped mummy with a magical shield. So, I did everything else I could think of to counter you guys and only when I was on the ropes and had nothing else did I decide to pull out the Shield."

"Oh, and uh..." Ron blushed and scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment, "...uh, thanks for giving me the Hidabed. Turns out I did find a use for it. Heh heh heh."

"Yeah, wish we would've thought of that..." George mumbled as he looked over at the bed.

"Anyway, right now, Ron you have our entire set of up-to-date gear that we use in the field," said Fred. "We'll be happy to upgrade your own gear and maintain your supplies on an as needed basis. And you can keep the Millennium Shield too. That thing's more trouble than it's worth in our hands. Besides, it doesn't duplicate to our clones for some reason..."

"Wait... that's it? A few weeks of cramming that's worse than what I've been told Finals are like, and that's it? You're having me on, aren't you?" Ron was outraged.

"Not at all, well..."

"Not quite anyway."

"See, anything else, and we'd be teaching you how to make all these toys yourself."

"Which isn't really possible..."

"Or logical."

"Because you're a First Year Ron. And First Years know squat about spell crafting."

"Even when we were First Years, we knew practically less than squat..."

"But we cheated too."

"By having out clones read ahead in homework..."

"Then spending the entire year reading every book in the Library..."

"Then the experiments..."

"The testing..."

"And the sneaking into Dad's garage at home as often as possible."

"But you're not the type to do that sort of thing, Ron. So we'll just leave you in Percy's capable hands, and any time we come up with something new, maybe even a prototype to test out..."

"We'll pick up right where we left off."

"But for right now," Fred glanced down at a timepiece he pulled from his belt, "Practical exam is over with and it is almost dinnertime. Percy should be here any second..." Hermes arrived right next to them in a rush of wind, "...now. Excellent timing as always, Percival!"

"Unfortunately, not as good as usual," Hermes said back to them. In a manner that most of his family did when wearing their costumes, Percy changed his voice, or more like he changed his manner of speaking, from the pretentious and pompous Prefect Percy, to a more serious and equally sarcastic and fast-paced tone.

"There's trouble at the Alleys," Hermes told them, and the Twins' faces fell.

A moment later there were two each of Fred and George, and the originals quickly pulled out their special rings and twisted them. A moment later Fred and George were replaced by the Twin Devils.

"Let's go!" they said in unison, their gruff voices making them sound as dark as their reputation.

"Hey! Let me go with you! I haven't been doing all this training for nothing you know!" Ron protested with the Fred and George clones started to pull him back to the castle.

"Sorry Ron, but if it were anything you could even remotely help with, I wouldn't be here asking for the Devils' help, now would I?" Hermes pointed out. "This is serious, and even if you did have powers and knew how to use them, for this... I'm sorry Ron, but Mum would skin the lot of us alive for bringing you or Ginny anywhere close to this."

"Well, at least tell me what's going on!" Ron wanted to know.

Hermes hesitated, but seeing both Fred and George and the Twin Devils giving him similar looks, he sighed and said a single word. A word that had all of them paling in fear and had Ron feeling grateful he _wasn't_ going, while the Twin Devils, however both got a glint of anger in their expressions, and you could feel the temperature of the atmosphere drop by several degrees.

"It's Theron, the Witch Hunter."

_Please Read & Review!_

_Author's Note: Next month's chapter may be delayed a couple times, so I apologize in advance for that. I find myself rewriting portions of the next few parts rather extensively. Initially they were written along the same lines of a script from the Adam West "Batman" TV series. Now I'm endeavoring to correct that glaring error. Thank you for your patience. Oh, and if you'd like it out on time or sooner rather than later, please feel free to contact me and I'm always accepting offers for betas and co-writers. Enjoy!_


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